looked up and met his gaze, it pleaded for me to understand, but I wasn’t sure I could. “What do you want this to be?”
It was really the only question I needed an answer to. Everything else could be smoothed over and figured out as long as we were on the same page with this. I couldn’t help the hope that bubbled to life in my belly, the deep yearning for this man to have changed his mind about what he wanted his life to be.
Crosby’s expression grew guarded. “What do you mean?”
“Us. You and me. In your perfect world, what does this relationship look like?”
He stepped closer, his hand reaching out and tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. I’d let it go wavy today, free in the way Crosby had always encouraged me to be. He twisted the strand around his finger before letting go. “I want us to be exactly what we were before I messed things up. I love going on adventures with you, forcing you to watch Star Wars with me.” He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me flush against him. “I love touching you and making you come alive.”
I loved all of that, too, but it didn’t change that I wanted more. “Is that all you’ll ever want? No building a home together, making a family?” I didn’t need a ring, but I did need him. And in a way where he was fully present and in it with me.
Crosby stiffened. “I told you when we started this that I’m not a forever and picket fences kind of guy. It’s not what I want for my life. But I do want you.”
Pressure gathered behind my eyes. “I don’t care about picket fences, but I do care about forever.”
Crosby’s hands around me spasmed. “Can’t we just take things one day at a time? Why do you have to put all of this pressure on me all of a sudden?”
I stepped out of Crosby’s hold, his words stinging. “It’s not pressure. It’s telling you what I want, what I need. If you get to express what you want out of life, then so do I. But we have to be real with each other. What each of us wants might not match up.”
A muscle in Crosby’s cheek ticked as he rubbed the back of his neck. “This feels a hell of a lot like an ultimatum. Sign on the dotted line for marriage and babies, or you’re gone. How is that fair? I care about you, Kenna. I—”
Crosby stopped short, not finishing that thought. It was the symbol of all we were. He might love me. But he couldn’t say the words. He wanted me in his life. But he always had to have that escape hatch. It tore at something deep inside, not only for myself but also for Crosby. I had played the wishing game before, hoping that a man would change his ways. It hadn’t worked out well for me then, and I refused to do it again.
I reached out, lacing my fingers with Crosby’s, his rough palm against my smooth. The juxtaposition had always soothed something in me. I looked into his endless brown eyes. “Life is messy and terrifying, but it is also crazy beautiful. You taught me that. You showed me that my wreckage could be perfect in its own way, that all those little cracks in my soul just made me stronger, more beautiful. Truly and authentically me. You taught me what it means to truly live.”
I held his hands tighter, not giving him a chance to let go. “But even with all your striving to live life to the fullest, you’re only living a half-life.” Crosby’s hands jerked in mine, his eyes blazing. I just held on harder. “You repel down the side of a mountain but refuse to let yourself truly fall in love. You tear down trails that would give me a heart attack, yet you won’t let yourself have a family. You let people close but not all the way in. Not to where they have the chance to hurt you.”
It had taken me a long time to realize this truth. Crosby had always seemed so open, welcoming anyone into his circle, his life. But there was a wall around the core of who he was, and Crosby wouldn’t let that down for anyone.
“I let you in. Don’t say I didn’t.” Heat and anger lit Crosby’s features as he spoke.