Peyton exhaled and dropped his gaze. “It’s not that… I mean, you didn’t…” He closed his eyes. After a moment, he admitted, “I keep thinking about what you said last night.”
“What I said—” My teeth snapped shut and my spine straightened. “Oh. Did I… Fuck, did I jump the gun and say it too soon?”
Peyton shook his head slowly. “No.”
I watched him, completely confused and this close to panicking. “Then?”
His shoulders fell, and he put his coffee cup on a coaster. Raking his hand through his hair, he finally spoke, and he sounded defeated. “I’m… worried you’re not really in love withme.”
My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. “What? Of course I am! What does that even mean?”
He met my gaze. “It means you told me you loved me right after you said you were grateful I’d helped you into rehab.”
“Yeah? And? Iamgrateful for that. Shouldn’t I be?”
“It’s not that. It’s—” Peyton scratched the back of his neck and sighed as he met my gaze with tired, bloodshot eyes. “Would you love me like this if things had played out differently?”
“Differently? What things?”
Peyton took a breath. “If we… hadn’t ended up linemates this season.” His expression begged me to put two and two together.
At first, I couldn’t make the connection.
But then I did, and my heart sank deeper than I’d thought possible. We were linemates because there’d been a vacant spot for a first line center. Because our first line center had been very suddenly gone.
I struggled to find my voice, and somehow managed to croak, “You think this”—I gestured at the two of us—“is just because Leif is gone? And, what? Because I fell apart over that and you helped me get back on my feet?”
“I…” He chewed his lip, staring down at his hands. “Look, we were both attracted to each other before I came here. So maybe something would’ve happened, you know? But everything thatdidhappen, it was because of…” He paused, and his shoulders dropped. “Fuck. There’s no way to say it without sounding like I’m accusing you of anything or like I don’t trust you. Idotrust you. I…” He pushed out a breath as he met my gaze. “I’m worried you’re not really in love with me. You’re in love with something that feels better than everything you’ve been going through.”
My lips parted. “That’s… That’s really what you think this is? I don’t have feelings for you—I’m just grabbing on to the first good thing that came along?”
Peyton winced and avoided my eyes again. “I’m saying I don’t know. And I’m not sure you do either. I want this. I…” He was quiet for a painfully long moment before he whispered, “I want this to be real. I’m just scared that neither of us knows if it is or not.”
The emotions crashing over the top of each other in my chest were almost physically painful. Anger wanted me to jump to my feet and demand to know who the fuck he thought he was, questioning if I was sincere. Did he really think I couldn’t tell the difference between love and“well, this doesn’t suck as much as everything else”?That anger was bolstered by bone-deep hurt that he actually thought my grief for my best friend defined everything I did or felt.
And that grief wanted to drag me down to the floor and wrench some more tears out of me, because fuck me, maybe he was right. Everything in my world had been colored by Leif’s death. Everything. How could I say it hadn’t touched our relationship too?
“I’m sorry, Avery,” he said. “I want this. I really do. But I need to know where the lines are between us and…” He pressed his lips together.
“Between us and everything that put me in rehab,” I growled.
He flinched, still refusing to meet my gaze. “Considering I was part of putting you in rehab…”
All the air rushed out of me. “So, what? You regret that now?”
“No.” The word was almost soundless—little more than a soft exhalation—and he finally looked at me through his lashes. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. No doubt about it.But… what happens when you’re on your feet again? Done with rehab and therapy, and you’re feeling more like yourself?” He swallowed like it took some serious effort. “Where does that leave us?”
All those emotions surged again, but none of them crystallized into an answer. Not one that could actually pull us back together.
Because we were…
Holy shit, was thisending?
“So you’re…” I swallowed hard. “Are you calling this off, then?”
I didn’t like how long he avoided my gaze and gnawed his lip.
“If you are,” I said, my voice hollow, “then just say so. Rip the bandage off, okay? Because I don’t want?—”
