It tasted like a lie, so I took a much larger swallow of coffee than was probably advisable to burn the flavor of it out of my mouth.
“I don’t believe you.”
I gave him a tight smile.
“I know you more than she does,” he reminded me. “I’ve done this with you before.”
I let out a sardonic laugh. “Oh, I don’t think we’ve donethisbefore.”
“Finn.” He stared at me, and we were at an impasse.
I rested my head against the wall, knowing the only way to get through this was to have a mature conversation, but words had never been as hard as they felt in that moment. I was terrified of the truth, but another lie would take me out at the knees.
“What changed?” Daniel finally asked me, words so soft I almost missed them. “Did I do something wrong when we?—”
“No,” I answered quickly, cutting him off with a furious shake of my head and a raised hand to stop him from even entertaining the thought this was somehow his fault and not mine. “You haven’t. It’s not you at all.”
“Is it…is it them?” Daniel’s voice cracked. “Did they call you or something?”
Of course he was asking about Neil and Annette. Why wouldn’t he be? If he imagined I was mirroring behaviors from our first days together, it made sense he’d think the root cause was somehow the same. And maybe in a way, it was. Maybe I was still spooked by the hurt that had been inflicted upon me when I was with them.
“Not them,” I said.
“Someone else, then?”
“As if there could be anyone else for me.” I set my coffee down on the floor, took Daniel’s out of his hand and set it next to me. I crawled across the small window seat and took his face in my hands, eyes scanning his face to see if he really, truly believed there was anyone for me in this life besides him and his future wife.
“I had to ask,” he murmured, trying to look away, but I wouldn’t let him.
“Daniel, I…” Lincoln’s voice echoed in my head and my hands trembled, fingers sweaty against the overnight growth on Daniel’s cheeks. He reached up and curled his fingers around my wrists, chaining us together.
“Finn.”
“I love you.”
Daniel’s eyes widened in a flash and then softened, his fingers holding me steady, rooting me to my seat.
“I love you,” I said again, trying to channel my brother’s boyfriend and be brave for long enough to get through this confession that felt like thorns wrapped around my ribs. “And I love Sophie, and I don’t know how any of this is going to work after September and I’m terrified.”
Daniel slid his fingers over the tops of my hands, covered them with his palms and stared back at me with such an earnest intensity I worried it would be the thing to kill me after all.
“Hey.” He stroked his thumbs over mine, smiling at me softly. “Take a breath, okay?”
I did, and it didn’t make me feel any better.
“Is that all?” Daniel asked.
I scoffed, tipping my head back because it was suddenly too hard to look at him but I didn’t dare let him go.
“Is it a lot?” he asked me next, and I bit the corner of my tongue to stop myself from saying something he didn’t deserve. I was somehow able to manage a nod.
“It’s a lot for me too,” Daniel said, and that earned my attention.
My stare snapped back to his face, and Daniel gave me the softest and saddest smile, his thumbs still drawing swirls across the side of my hand.
“What?”
“Loving you,” he whispered, blinking hard. “It’s a lot. But so is being loved by you, so I’m sure it’s worth it.”