“Peyton, I’m sorry.”
“I thought you loved me.”
“I did. I—I do.”
“That’s not how we treat the people we love,” I said quietly. “I’d been clinging to just enough self-worth to convince myself of that, too. I had finally moved on and assumed you had too.”
Korbin shook his head, blowing a breath of air between his teeth. “I never moved on,” he said. “I thought of you every waking moment, every second of every day. I wondered how you were, and if I should find you. A million times I picked up the phone to call you, to apologize, to ask to see you again, and a million times the fear snuck up on me, reminding me over and over again why I had let you go in the first place. And it wasn’t because I didn’t love you. It was because I loved you too much.”
I swallowed the painful lump in my throat, pushing the beer bottle aside to reach across the table and take his hand in mine with a gentle squeeze. Korbin Butler was hardly a vulnerable man. He walked around with a façade, the self-assurance and cockiness he showed everyone else nothing more than a mask. I knew him better than that. I always had.
“You made the decision for me,” I said softly. “You gave me no choice in the matter.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew you’d chose wrong.”
“Do you still believe that fighting for each other was the wrong decision?” I asked, and Korbin sighed, his shoulders rising and falling just slightly.
“My greatest fear in life is leaving you alone in this world,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want to be responsible for that pain.”
“But you did leave me alone,” I reminded him. “So really, what was the difference?”
“The difference was, Peyton, I saw what my mother went through when my father died. She lost herself. My whole family did. He was the rock that held everyone together, and when he was killed in the line of duty, our lives shattered. All I could think about was you someday being in my mother’s shoes if something happened to me. The pain our children would go through, the loneliness you would feel.” Korbin sighed and shook his head, releasing my hand to rub his palm over his face in frustration. “I hated what my father did to my family. For a long time, I hated him for hurting us all like that. But—but then I realized that he was no different from me. He chose his work, because he loved it and it’s all he ever wanted to do. And my mother knew that when she married him.”
“And you thought that Nina was allowed that choice and I wasn’t?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you implied.” I focused my attention on the spring rolls in front of me, reaching for one to roll it between my fingers before taking a bite, hoping the chewing would distract me from crying.
“I was selfish,” Korbin said. “I know that. And I’m sorry.”
Silence settled between us then, and Korbin reached for his fork to take a bite of the cold noodles, chewing slowly.
“I thought things had changed,” I said softly. “The second time around, when we met again, I thought that maybe it was—fate. Maybe fate brought us together again. It seemed too good to be true, even with Jake in the picture.” With a sigh I rested my head in my hands, rubbing my temples. “Turns out, it was.”
Korbin sighed. When he reached for my hand again, I pulled it back and dropped it into my lap, avoiding his touch.
“I have no excuse for you other than fear,” he said. “Especially then. I’d almost been killed the day that beam fell and pinned me, Peyton. I almost died. A few inches up, down, more fire, a few seconds extra … I would have been killed. And my knee was a constant reminder of that, even as I spent time with you. But—”
“But what?” I asked, cutting him off. “What is the point of all this, Korbin? You’ve made it pretty clear where you stand. I don’t know how you want me to react to this visit.”
“But the night Tate and Paisley got married, something clicked in me, you know? I didn’t want to admit it, especially not to a crowd of people who know me as a great firefighter and nothing else. I didn’t want to be vulnerable, Peyton. Who does?”
“The comment you made was hurtful,” I told him quietly. “All you did was reaffirm to me that you would never settle down. You would never accept me, and especially not us.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what? For saying it, or meaning it?”
“For saying it, Peyton, because I don’t mean it. Not anymore. Not since I lost you the first time, and especially not now.”
Another heavy silence settled over the room, and Korbin and I looked at each other, not speaking but still understanding.
“I don’t know if I can trust you,” I whispered, feeling the pain clench around my heart like a metal vice. “You destroyed my trust for you the first time, and then again the second time.”
