Darla stood from the sofa, strode to him, put her hands on his shoulders. "I’m not ready to say goodbye."
He wanted to laugh and give her that, but he couldn’t.
"Darla, this stuff?" He laid his hand on her hip. "It doesn’t last. It just doesn’t."
"Not if we don’t let it.” She gripped his shoulders.
Why was she pushing so hard for something that would break him? "Darla, go be happy."
"Don’t tell me what to do."
He extracted himself from her grip. "You’re right. That’s not my place."
"What if I decide I want it to be your place?" she asked, the words fiercely gentle.
Her words were strong, certain. But her expression shifted to erase the little sliver of hope he hadn’t realized she still carried until it was gone.
"Maybe I’m finally ready to give it a shot with someone who doesn’t need to be fixed.” She tossed her hands up. "Andthat’swhen things end?"
"What do you mean, someone who needs to be fixed?"
"You’re not a fixer-upper, Mach. You’re the real deal."
That’s where she was wrong. So he grabbed his duffel in one hand and pushed her hair behind her ear with the other. "Best to do it now, before we’re in too deep."
"Mach." She said his name, tossing it right at him like a blade.
He should tell her and explain, so she would understand. "It’s not that I don’t want to see this thing with us go further, but it won’t last and we need to accept that now so we don’t get hurt. I refuse to do that to you."
Her hands went right to his chest and he held them there.
"There’s a difference between being unable to do something and being totally unwilling," she said. "Then I guess that’s it, huh?"
Why did he feel like he’d been kicked in the gut? He was the one making the call to leave.
He turned. "You deserve everything."
He said nothing, because there was nothing left to say that would help. It’d all been said already.
Chapter Twenty-Five
MACH
In the weekfollowing theLately, Laterappearance, Darla flew back to Denver with Sam. Mach and the guys finished up some work in the studio before they headed back, too. And in the midst of that, one of the more popular A-list heartthrobs found out he had a secret identical twin. A separated-at-birth tabloid story did the trick and, just like that, no one was talking about Darla at all.
Word had it—from Hans—that she was back at the hospital and no one knew if she’d accepted any Frontline assignments. At least, no one told him if she had.
But it was none of Mach’s business, anyway.
So things were back to normal. Darla got to go back to her life, and Mach floated on his pizza slice in the pool instead of sorting his shit. His days were spent with the sun warming his skin with a soundtrack of water lapping against the sides of the pool. Weightless and sprawled out on the float, he willed his brain to stop going back to her. The damn thing was on autopilot, though, always thinking straight back to her in a constant torment he couldn’t shake.
Which was why his time in the pool did not spark joy anymore. He kept it up because at least it was better than all the alternatives he’d come up with—those being getting drunk at Brek’s or actually sorting his shit.
"Time’s up," Tanner said, his voice coming from the edge of the pool.
Mach cracked open an eyelid, squinting against the sun. "Huh?"
"Time’s. Up," Tanner said, again, this time with more insistence.
