“You want to shoot photos?”
“Maybe just ones of you.”
I chuckle. “Prepare to be bored to death.”
“You could never bore me, Maggie. I’d never tire of looking at you or listening to you. Or just being where you are.”
My throat is all of a sudden drier than a desert.
What wasthat, cowboy?
I open my mouth to respond, but my plummeting chest steals the air from my lungs as fast as it comes.
He dips his head, huffing a strangled sound. “I know I’m light-years ahead of where I’m probably supposed to be.” The words almost sound desperate.
The coffee arrives, and I pour the salvation into our mugs. Hadley sips his and I stare into mine like the world just imploded around me. We drink our coffee in silence, and I hate that I’ve made this awkward. We’ve never had this kind of angst.
Annoyed each other.
Had fun . . .
Been more intimate than I ever thought we would be, but not this.
This feels wrong.
The confusion and uncertainty between us. I hate it.
Hadley’s staring out at the mountains towering over us, his gaze set on the peaks as he drinks his coffee.
My mind runs a million miles an hour as I try to find the words that will bridge what he said to what I need to tell him.
That this is just casual for me.
That I’m never going to choose him over my career.
. . . I’m the world’s biggest asshole.
The coffee burns all the way down. So it should.
I swallow the last mouthful and close my eyes, hands still cradling the mug. I roll my lips together, and my heart starts a frantic dance against my ribs as I try like hell to form the words. Fragments of what I want to say fling through my mind, and I have no chance of catching them and stringing them into something coherent.
“It’s real pretty here,” Hadley finally says. The first words out of his mouth after his last ones make my gut sink. He may as well have started talking about the weather.
“Ha—”
“It’s okay, Maggie. Got carried away, I guess.”
No.
No . . .
“Hadley,” I rasp.
“Let’s disappear into those mountains of yours, hey?” He downs the last of his coffee. I do the same, and we make for the exit.
“Just let me grab my stuff.” I take the stairs two at a time up to my room and grab up my phone and am back down before Mom or Brad ambush us.
I swipe up my keys for my tiny little car, Buzzy, and take Hadley’s hand. “We’re out of here.”
