When he parked in the garage and punched the button to close the door, I knew we couldn’t go into the house and pretend we hadn’t had this talk.
“I want you, Jonah. But I want more too. I was ready to get married two months ago, and I was willing to overlook a less than ideal partner to have a family. You’re my ideal man, but if we’re not on the same page, I haveto know.”
Please be on the same page. Please.
The muscles in the corner of his jaw flexed. “I don’t want kids, Summer.”
I caught a tinge of regret, but his determination was strong. My heart broke.
I balanced on a precipice. Did I sever what we had and search for someone I was as mad about as Jonah?
I didn’t want anyone else. I wanted him. It’d always been Jonah for me, and now that I had him, what did I do? What did I sacrifice to keep this guy in my life?
“Then what’s our future?” Forget marriage. I didn’t care to be a girl so wrapped up in nuptials that I settled for a Boyd. But what we were doing now didn’t register as sincere. We lived in different towns and carried on different lives until we decided to overlap once a week. “Do I stay in my condo in Bozeman and you stay here and we just fuck around?”
“We’re doing more than fucking around,” he said tightly.
“No, we’re not.” I waved my hand between us. “If this isn’t leading to anything but more of this, don’t you find that... I don’t know. Unfulfilling?”
He ground his teeth together and glowered out the window.
“Long-distance dating isn’t enough for me.” The words were like glass shards on my tongue, but I forged ahead. “I’ve kept my unhappiness in relationships to myself too many times to keep quiet with someone as important to me as you.”
“So, what? I propose or this is over?”
I stiffened. “Is that what you think I’m saying?”
“Sounds like it. You dumped my brother, and nowyou’re dumping me. Neither of us could be what you want.”
I gasped and the light from the garage door went out. “How can you throw Eli in my face?”
He shook his head, his jaw working. Then he stilled, the angles of his face hard. “Because you can stick with a douche like Boyd to the point of walking down the aisle, but if the last name’s Dunn, you’re ditching him. Maybe you belong in the city. Find some asshole who won’t hit you this time.”
His attitude didn’t make sense, but I also didn’t care. “Just because you haven’t slapped me doesn’t mean using what you know about my life to hurt me is okay. It means you’re fine with being an asshole to me.”
I grappled for the door handle, and after two attempts the door finally opened and I spilled out.
“Goddammit, Summer.”
He scrambled to get out of the pickup, but I raced away. I might’ve just called him an asshole, but I guess I was one too, because I took advantage of that limp to leave him and my broken heart behind.
I sobbed the whole way home. Ugly, wrenching sobs, and I had to pull it together every time I had to pass a car. I would not crash because Jonah only wanted a fuck buddy. I would not wreck my car and miss work because Jonah was a scared dick still wrapped up in his own world. And I would not make the other drivers think I was having a medical episode and call emergency services on me.
Finally, I pulled into my garage. Only an hour ago I’dbeen in a different garage with a man I’d wanted to spend my life with.
Had I done the right thing?
Was I really not okay with sleepovers and dates? We could act young and carefree. I’d be the girl who ran a distillery with the mountain-man boyfriend. We’d be a couple everyone talked about in Bourbon Canyon.
Then I’d visit Scarlett and Tate and the envy would twine around my heart. Same with Wynter. And if Autumn found the husband she so badly wanted and had the kids she’d dreamed about, would I start avoiding my family, telling myself I was too busy with dates and hot sex? God help me if Junie settled down before me.
Adults didn’t need a life partner or kids to be fulfilled, but that life was whatIwanted.
I didn’t get out. It was late, but there was only one person I wanted to talk to. Two, but Jonah wasn’t interested in me beyond the physical.
I called the person I knew would answer even if she’d been in a deep slumber.
Mama answered with an alert “Hello?”
