“But Shan, that’s not all I have to say. That just barely scratches the surface.”
“Okay, what else is there?”
“Listen, I don’t even know how to begin to say I’m sorry for breaking your heart, as you said last night,” he said, holding her gaze. “What I can tell you is this. It is my biggest regret. And you know I never talked about the specifics of our relationship when I was doing standup in college,” he said, his voice stripped bare, the way he’d always talked to her when he wanted her to know he was serious. She trusted that voice. She knew it cold, and she knew the promise he’d made to keep the details of their private life out of his comedy. So she’d never be the girlfriend that a comedian used as the butt of a joke in his routines. “That remains the case. But there was one bit that I did, and I suppose I was always hoping you would see it. I did it so you might see it. But you told me last night you never did, and I’d really like to show it to you because I think this says everything I want to start to say. Will you watch it?”
Shannon gulped, and nodded. She didn’t push back as she had when Colin had started to show her the video. She didn’t resist. Maybe that made her a fool, or maybe it just made her ready. Four million others had seen it, but she was the only one who’d watch it as the intended viewer.
“Show it to me,” she said, her voice soft, nerves trickling through it. He dug into his pocket for his phone. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but she was incapable of staying far away from Brent, not when he showed this sweet, tender, loving side. She’d come there only to apologize, never expecting he’d feel the need to do so, too. Not after his quick retort last night. Now that he’d begun saying his mea culpa, she wanted all of it.
She crossed her legs and leaned back against the bar, her spine digging into the metal as the clip began—the part she’d seen. He strolled across the stage talking about ‘that guy’ at a business meeting who gets caught with porn on his screen during a presentation. Then he talked about how he effectively became that guy when he was meeting with the head of a hotel chain.
There was something so surreal about this moment. She was with flesh-and-blood Brent, and she was watching Brent from a year ago, too.
“You’re in two places at once,” she teased, as she glanced at him then back to the screen. She stopped talking as the clip moved past the point where she’d hit stop the first time, when he’d said he Facebook stalked his ex.
The on-screen Brent tapped his chest, the look on his face one of utter disdain for his own antics. “Ever done that to your college girlfriend? Searched for her on Facebook? Looked up her pictures?” he asked, looking at the audience, as the camera swept out to capture several of them nodding.
“Yeah. Me too. I looked up my girl. Spent a ton of hours trying to figure out what she was up to. Translation—is she still hot and gorgeous, and did she marry some other guy?”
A rush of heat spread across Shannon’s chest from those words. Meaningless words, but still the compliment thrilled her.
“And then I forgot to close the browser page before I went into a meeting. And that’s what popped on screen as I was making my business pitch. Her Facebook page. So now all my new business partners know I’m the guy who pines away for his college girlfriend.”
Her breath caught, and she turned to him. He was watching her, cataloguing her reaction to his bit. His eyes searched hers, but she returned her focus to the phone, more interested now in on-screen Brent. Because on-screen Brent wasn’t talking about getting caught watching porn, as she’d once thought. He was talking about her.
“But in my defense, if you saw her, you’d pine too. She was...” He stopped walking, stopped talking, and for the briefest of moments, he was not on stage—he was lost in time, it seemed. The next word seemed to fall from his lips with regret and wistfulness, “…perfection.”
She brought her hand to her mouth, covering her trembling lower lip. She sucked in her breath, holding in all that she felt, the overwhelming rush of emotions. It was just a comedy routine. He was great on stage, even when poking fun at himself. But even so, she was flooded with so much possibility from the way he talked about her.
“So not only was I busted for Facebook stalking my ex, but I’m also the complete asshole who let her get away. She was the one. The one who got away. Let this be your lesson, men of the world. Don’t be me. Don’t be King Schmuck.”
The clip ended.
When she’d originally watched the first half of the video, she’d wanted to reach her hands through the screen and throttle him.
Now, she wanted to squeeze her own heart for the stupid way it dared to beat the tiniest bit faster when he’d said perfection.
Silence cloaked them both. She stared at the screen, not quite ready to meet his eyes, too afraid of what she’d see. She’d only come there to clear the air, and now she was spun back in time, feeling everything again.
Lust. Desire. Sadness. Anger, too.
Without looking up, she asked quietly, “What part?”
“What do you mean—what part?”
“What part did you want me to see?” she asked, keeping her voice steady so she wouldn’t reveal the cascade of emotions waterfalling through her chest. “Because it’s funny. But which part is for me?”
She kept her head down. If she looked in his eyes, she’d lose herself. She’d lose her center. She’d lose every ounce of strength she’d relied on during the last ten years.
His voice was a confession. “She was perfection... she was the one... and I was the complete asshole who let her walk away.” Then his fingertips brushed against her wrist. She held in the hot shiver she felt from his touch. “I’m sorry I didn’t go with you. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you. I’m sorry I gave you an ultimatum. I’m sorry I twisted words around because I was desperate to keep you.”
His words now were a thread that pulled her up. She lifted her face and looked at him. In a second, she knew. He wasn’t performing, he wasn’t acting, and he wasn’t faking a thing. His eyes were serious. She believed him. She wanted to believe her body, too, and her body knew what it wanted.
She’d always listened to her body, had always been deeply in tune with its wishes and wants. Since she was four years old she had wanted nothing more than to dance. She had danced every day, harder, faster, better, until she was at the top of her game, and then tore her ACL one day during a rehearsal. But still, she remained a physical woman. She liked to be one with her body. And just then, her body and her heart wanted the same damn thing.
For Brent to make her feel good again.
As only he could. As only he ever had.
When she and Brent had been together, he’d fucked all her troubles away. Every kiss, every touch, every taste was the antidote to every painful memory. Sex with him was exhilarating. It was the greatest rush, the sweetest high. It was ecstatic amnesia. When he fucked her, she was no longer one of the Paige-Prince kids. She was not the left behind, the whispered about, one of those kids whose mother murdered their father for money.
With Brent she was muscle and bone, and she was solid and strong. She was a woman wanted by a man.
She wanted that man too. With everything inside her. The desire burrowed into her blood. It called out insistently, like a beating drum, like a fire in her veins. She might regret this later. She might regret it in a few minutes. That moment she didn’t feel regret. She felt hungry. She felt greedy.
She felt justified.
“Perfection?” she asked, tilting her head to the side, reeling him in with his own description of her. “I’m perfection?”
He inched closer, nearly inhabiting the same space. “Yes,” he said in a low rumble that sent goosebumps over her skin, a promise of other things he’d say in that wickedly sexy voice. “You are perfection, and everything I said was and is true.”