And then suddenly she’s right in front of me, and it’s the most natural thing in the world to catch her in my arms and twirl her around.
When I set her down, my arms stay around her and her hands stay on my chest.
“This is exciting,” I manage to say.
She nods, her eyes bright. “Yeah. I should go tell my sisters.”
But neither of us moves.
The air around us might be hovering just above freezing, but with Rory’s body pressed against mine, it feels like I’m on fire.
“I want you to have a good Christmas,” I say thickly.
“I am. And you, too. I want—” She clenches her fist around the flannel shirt I’m wear. That she was wearing. That I’ve fucked her in, and covered her naked body with.
God, this shirt represents all the messiness of our relationship.
Rory was right last night. We need to stop using each other as a crutch. We need to figure out how to be in each other’s lives without the complications of sex and unresolved feelings.
Even if those complications are the only times I feel truly alive anymore.
But right now, it’s so hard to hold myself back.
She searches my face.
“I want you to be happy,” she finally says.
And then she steps back.
Fuck.
I catch her wrist and pull her back against me. Fucking hell. “I don’t want you to think that I’m not happy right now, helping you out.”
She shrugs. “But you weren’t happy when we were together, and I’m not going to forget that.”
“Because—”
She keeps going, cutting me off. “On the other side of this, I owe you one, big time. Whatever you need.”
“Roar, listen to me.”
She presses her lips together, her gaze tightening up. Wary.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Was it not true?”
I wince.
Her gaze turns suspiciously bright.
I can’t make her cry on Christmas Fucking Eve. “Itwastrue, months ago. I shouldn’t have said it because I don’t think I’d feel the same way now, if we had a redo.”
“We don’t,” she says tightly. “Wewon’t.”
The message is clear as a bell. I won’t have a second chance to break her heart. And we need to learn how to roll through these waves of past hurt feelings. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
