“No,” he said. “You aren’t diminishing what we have.”
“It was just a fun vacation fling—”
“Birdie—”
“This isn’t what I want, Lance.”
The argument died in his throat. She could tell.
“I have a life back in Kansas, and you have a life here. We got too serious too fast. I mean for goodness sake, we slept together before you had even seen my animal. Before you even knew what she was.”
“You didn’t want to talk about her.”
“I had no plans to ever show her to you either and I think that’s a bad sign. We should just cool off before we make a mistake.”
“Make a mistake,” he repeated softly, and now she could see it—the shards of anger in his green eyes.
He looked away from her and stared straight ahead. Through the bar windows, the bartender was closing the cash register. “You think I’m a mistake?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes or no?”
Her eyes burned and she clenched her fists on her thighs. “The answer isn’t that simple—”
“Yes. Or. No.”
No, because she loved him already and love was never a mistake. No because she would cherish the memories with him for always. But yes, because now they would both be hurt when she left. Tonight had dragged her back down to earth. He wasn’t a shifter. She wasn’t a human. They were different. Maybe he should’ve guessed she was the hamster, she didn’t know. They had dived way too deep, way too fast, and now there was real risk of drowning in him. Away from him. He needed to go back to his apartment here, with his family and his friends and his job, and she needed to figure out her life at home. Figure out a way to go out more and socialize more, and work on herself so that someday she would be ready for a man like Lance to come along. In Kansas. A man like Lance. She shook her head. There was no one like him.
She couldn’t take back her feelings, and she couldn’t stop the hurt of separation that was coming.
Was he a mistake?
“Yes,” she whispered.
Lance gritted his teeth and nodded. He gripped the steering wheel.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I think we both need space tonight to think about all of this. I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“Don’t be,” he said. He sounded so hurt. “The last one said the same thing too.”
Ooooooh hell. Birdie closed her eyes tightly. His ex had called him a mistake. The ex getting married tomorrow. The one he was supposed to marry. The one who had left him just a few days before happily ever after.
God, she couldn’t take it back now.
“Lance?” she squeaked.
He turned and offered her the saddest smile. “It’s okay. You should know I really had fun this last couple of days.” His eyes were so full of emotion, and he ripped his gaze away from her, shook his head again and put the truck into park.
And oh, she could feel the pain washing off him. It made it hard to breathe and made her chest ache.
“I had a lot of fun too,” she whispered.
The trip home was quiet. She didn’t know what to say to end this gracefully. Everything that needed saying? They’d done it. They’d kept it simple, as it needed to be.
When he pulled up to the cabins, he hesitated before shutting the truck off. The snowfall in the high beams was quiet beautiful, and she thought she would remember this moment, for better or worse, for always.
“I’m going to want to text you tonight. I need you to be clear about what you want from me,” he said low.
