“Regardless of Leo and Tristin, I’m pissed at you, Hayle. You didn’t believe me about your mom, and you agreed to your dad’s deal. You’ve barely spent any time at the townhouse in weeks. How am I supposed to just get over all of that and be with you?”
He finally released me and took a couple of steps back. “You’re right.” Pushing his hair off his forehead, he said, “That’s why I want you to go see my mom with me next weekend.”
I sucked in a startled breath. “You want me to do what?” I had to have heard him wrong.
“My first visit with her is a week from Sunday, and I want you to go with me. I’m going to make her tell me, us, the truth about everything. It’s the only way for us both to get past this.”
“Why would she tell the truth, now?” What little truth she’d imparted to me on Thanksgiving, she’d quickly denied when her son had shown up.
“Let me worry about that. Just come with me.”
I peered past him into the darkness, as though there might be a light to get me the hell out of this endless tunnel. He had a point—we’d never be able to move past his mother until the truth was finally revealed. But I had a hard time believing he would convince her to give up anything. What incentive did she have to confess?
“Please, Thea. I know I’ve done a shitty job of handling all of this, but I want to do better. And confronting my mom is the first step.”
All of a sudden, he was standing right in front of me again, and his pleading voice sank into my soul. Why couldn’t I deny him, even now? There had to be something seriously wrong with me.
“Okay, I’ll go with you. But don’t expect me to accept more of her lies.” I knew, in my heart, that she was responsible for killing my mother. Nothing she said would convince me otherwise.
“Deal.”
I rolled my eyes. Like father, like son. “You should probably choose another word.”
“How about, it’s a date?”
“If your idea of a good first date is going to visit the woman who threatened me with a kitchen knife…”
Hayle quirked a brow. “So, you agree that we should go on a first date.”
“I said nothing of the sort. I still want to yell at you.” That much was true. We’d come all the way out here, and I hadn’t done any yelling, damn it.
“And I want to kiss you.” He wrapped one arm around my waist and the other around the nape of my neck, his coat sliding from my shoulders to the ground. “I really want to kiss you, Thea.”
My gaze drifted down to his lips, and I tried not to dwell on what he was proposing. We weren’t together merely because he’d deemed it so. Except, when I thought about denying him, I just couldn’t do it. Maybe his not-so-grand gesture had worked on me, after all.
Instead of speaking, I lifted my chin, placing my mouth closer to his. Hayle must have gotten the message, because he captured my lips instantly, like he’d been waiting his entire life to do so.
His hands tightened on my waist and neck, pulling me fully into his body. I soaked up his warmth. It was more than relief from the chill of the night air. I was embracing the warmth and passion Hayle brought into my life. It was never easy with him, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
If I was going to be with him, I had to accept who he was. Hayle wasn’t the kind of person who could easily deny what his brain told him to do. His brain had been telling him for years that he didn’t fully fit in with his brothers. That he needed his father’s approval and support to succeed. That his mother was the one person who would always be there for him.
And I couldn’t exactly blame him for any of that. There were kernels of truth in everything his brain told him, but it wasn’t the entire story. Maybe he needed me—and Tristin and Leo—to finally see the whole picture.
Hayle slid his tongue along the seam of my lips, and I opened for him, in more ways than one. I was choosing to open myself up to the possibility of an us. And when his tongue tangled with mine, I knew my body was