Outside, she watched his set profile as they walked down the driveway, heavy dread settling over her once more.
“What’s wrong?” Her quiet question fell between them, hovering in the clear, chill air, and his gaze jerked to hers. For a moment, he stilled before his shoulders fell. She swallowed, her throat tight. “Don’t say nothing. You’re different with me than you are with them.”
With a rough exhale, he lowered the tailgate and hitched a hip on it. “I don’t think this is going to work, Holly.”
Her stomach bottomed out, a sickening swoop. Wanting to vomit, she stared at him. “Are you dumping me?”
“I’m suggesting we make a joint decision to call it quits.”
She couldn’t breathe, her lungs twisted into tight balls in her chest. “Colt.”
“We can still be–”
“Don’t youdarefinish that sentence.”
His brows jerked together, hard. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Colton.” Her hands shaking, she pushed her hair away from her face. This wasn’t happening. For three weeks now, she’d leaned into him, moving her heart away from Scott, letting herself dream and become more and more attached, and now he wanted to let her go? “Please don’t do this.”
“Look, Holly.” He spread his hands, a tormented light in his dark eyes. She clung to that tortured expression, clung to the modicum of hope it brought. “I–”
He broke off and cleared his throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed with a sharp swallow. Dread gathered in her, taking that small knot from earlier and kneading it, allowing it to rise, choking her.
“I have to be honest, and I have to give you a real choice.” His voice firmed, to match the serious set to his jaw. “I’m, uh . . . we both know I’m damaged, Hols.”
How dare he use that diminutive while he broke her heart? How dare he say this was about her, when really he wanted to protect himself — because caring about someone was risky as all get out. Of course he’d been hurt before, but they weren’t doing this his way. They just were not.
She lifted her chin. “You’re limiting yourself. It’s not the same thing.”
“Semantics won’t change–”
“You say you can’t forgive yourself until he does, but that is complete bullshit, Colt.” Fury overrode the dread but still choked her, her words emerging tight and strangled. She flung a hand toward Grace and Andy’s house, golden light spilling from their windows into the front yard. “In there, the way you are? Happy and relaxed. You could have that, all the time, but you won’t let yourself.”
Under his stare, she drew herself up, vibrating with anger. This was ridiculous, as infuriating as her father disappearing once he’d cut that last child support check. Why spend all those weekends dragging her away from Mama if he didn’t want a relationship with her?
“The worst part is that you think you’re making atonement, but you’renot. You’re acting out of guilt or fear or something that makes no sense.” Her eyes burned, and she blinked. She would not cry, even though she was mad enough to spit. Stabbing a finger toward their friends’ house again, she stared him down. “What do you gain by not letting us have that? How are you helping him by holding on to this?”
“I don’t deserve us.” His mouth went taut, his skin pale even in the dim light. “You get what I did, right?”
“I get that you were a kid who made a drunken mistake.” She folded her arms about herself, aching for him, for all of them. “You own that, but Colt, that one event, as awful as the aftermath was, can’t rule your life. That’s not right, either.”
He turned his face away, jaw clenched tight. Desperate frustration tried to fill up the hollow ache, and she swallowed hard, eyes burning.
“Colt.” Her voice broke.
His lashes fell, the line of his jaw firming to an impossible tension. His mouth thinned so it almost disappeared. She caught a glimpse of the tear escaping his lashes before he dashed it away with a terse movement. “I don’t know how to do what you want me to.”
But he wanted to, and the realization sent relief crashing through her, leaving her knees shaky, her body weak. She wound her fingers together, so tense her bones ached. She had to tread carefully here, as much as she wanted to kill him right now.
“We could find someone to help you,” she whispered.
The rough sound torn from his chest might have been ahuh.
“Someone to help us so maybe we work on it together.” The words hung on the air like mist. She swallowed again, throat constricted, and pointed at Grace and Andy’s, more gently this time. “So when you're with them, you don’t live in that moment. You live now. You’re not there with me yet, but we could be. If we both wanted that.”
“You know I want that.” He lifted his head, rubbed a hand over his face, but she glimpsed the wet glimmer along his dark lashes. “Hell.”
A memory flickered in her head, his joy and laughter as he played ball with the boys, as he held Laura, and her entire chest ached, longing for both of them. She longed for him to be happy, and she longed for—
