She sat up straighter. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged, finding my pants on the floor and pulling them on as fast as I could. “But it’s easier than pretending this is something it’s not.”
She shook her head, incredulous. “You just poured your heart out to me, Dean. Probably for the first time ever. You think I didn’t hear that?”
I tried to smile, but my lips wouldn’t cooperate. “I’m just trying to do you a favor, Vance. You don’t want a guy like me.”
She stared, her expression inscrutable. “I think I get to decide what I want.”
“Yeah, well, that’s your mistake.” My words landed flat, each one a pebble in a dry well. “But I’m not going to let you make it.”
I couldn’t stand the weight of her eyes anymore. I turned my back, zipped my pants, and grabbed my shoes.The urge to bolt was so strong I could feel the adrenaline in my toes.
She didn’t chase me.
I stood, staring at the closed door, my breath shallow and fast. My skin crawled. In the reflection of the window, I looked like a man who’d just lost a fight he didn’t know he was in.
For a second, I thought about turning around and trying again. But the words wouldn’t come. Instead, I slipped my shoes on, not bothering with socks, and yanked open the door.
The last thing I heard was Brynn’s voice behind me, “Coward.”
She wasn’t wrong. Wasn’t that the story of my life?
I left the room, every muscle vibrating, counting down the hours until my flight. There were too many. I needed to get on an earlier one. Every step away from Brynn felt like the last, desperate gasp of a drowning man.
I made it ten paces down the hall before her voice rang out, clear and sharp as broken glass. “Dean Mercer, if you take one more step, you’ll regret it.”
I stopped, the pulse throbbing behind my eyes. I could have kept going. Should have. But the promise in her voice wasn’t a threat—it was a dare. So I turned.
Brynn stood in the doorway, wrapped in nothing but a bedsheet and righteous fury. Her hair was a wild tangle, her cheeks blotched with anger. She looked stronger than I’d ever seen her. A hell of a lot stronger than me.
She clutched the sheet in one fist. “God, you really are scared. Go ahead and run, then. But at least admit it to yourself. You’re leaving because this was real, not because it was fake.”
My mouth became a parched desert. “Brynn?—”
“No. You don’t get to say my name. You don’t get to have the last word.” She pointed down the hall, her arm shaking. “Go back to your real life. Forget this ever happened.” She stepped back into her room and slammed the door.
I walked, shoes untied, shirt still wrinkled, the skin on my back tingling with loss. Tingling with the memory of last night. I made it to the end of the corridor before I stopped and pressed my forehead to the cool plaster wall. I didn’t cry.
But I wanted to.
I kept moving, hoping the ache would ease with distance and knowing it wouldn’t. Knowing I’d just blown the best thing to happen to me in a long time. The image of that business on Main Street flashed one last time in my mind before I ruthlessly shoved it down and locked it away.
