She lifted a finger. “You did not just call me a—”
“McKensie!” Bernard’s voice came from the house. “What are you doing here?”
Silas looked at his real estate agent. “You know her?”
“She’s my neighbor,” he said to Silas before he turned his head toward the girl in question. “My neighbor who was supposed to be taking care of my dogs this morning while I came here.”
McKensie huffed. “I already walked them and fed them. Now, I wanted to see if you were really selling a house to Silas Jenkins.”
It was all too much, and Silas’ head began to pound. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Actually, he’s not selling me a house.”
Bernard came down the front steps and walked toward Silas. “What are you talking about? You just signed the offer.”
“And you betrayed my trust.” Silas lifted his brows. “So you can go ahead and call up the other agent and let them know I’m pulling it.”
“You’ll have to pay the penalty.”
“Not if I find something during the inspection. I’m sure there’s something that isn’t up to speed if we look hard enough.” Silas turned to McKensie. “And you, please leave me alone. If you like the Storm, then feel free to cheer for the team. But if you keep showing up wherever I go, I’m going to file a police report.”
McKensie’s eyes started to water. “Are you serious?”
Silas snorted. “Did you really think you could just follow me around, and that something would happen between us?”
“I thought it was fate.”
Fate? There were so many things Silas could say to that, but he needed to be done with this conversation. He’d already wasted too much time on it when he should have been talking to Miriam. “It’s not. I’m sorry.”
He turned to apologize to Miriam for the impromptu circus performance, but she was gone. Silas’ eyes searched and spotted Miriam just as she was getting into her car. No, she was not going to run away right now. They had too much to talk about.
He ran over to her and put his hand on the door just before she could close it. His breaths came loud and hard. “Wait.”
She shook her head. “Don’t do this, Silas.”
Silas crouched down so that his face was level with hers. “Don’t do what?”
“This.” She waved her finger between them. “It’s better if we don’t drag this out anymore.”
“I’m not with her. That’s not why I asked you to come out here.”
Miriam bit her bottom lip. “I know.”
Silas let out a small sigh. “You do?”
She nodded. “I wasn’t sure at first. I saw her at the gym, and she was acting like you were dating. So when I first saw her—”
“She told you we were dating?” Silas was incredulous. He’d realized McKensie was crazy, but he wasn’t sure how she’d managed to find out that Silas was in love with Miriam and was trying to sabotage it.
Miriam’s eyes were glued to the car keys in her lap. “No, she was telling another girl at the gym about how you two were basically dating. When that guy came out yelling at her, it was obvious that she’s a fan gone wild.”
That was a relief. Silas was thankful that Miriam was being so level-headed about the situation. That gave him hope that things weren’t beyond repair. “Then why are you trying to leave?”
She closed her eyes. “I can’t live in a constant state of uncertainty anymore. Not knowing if you’re going to try to kiss me or ignore me is starting to affect everything in my life. I can barely do my job because I don’t know what each new day is going to bring. It’s not fair, Silas.”
Her voice cracked with the last few words, and it felt like a punch to the gut. Silas hadn’t realized what his week of self-discovery had done to Miriam. He wanted to make sure he was the best version of himself when he finally put everything on the line. Now it was obvious that Miriam didn’t need the perfect guy, she needed one she could rely on.
Silas was neither.
He released a long sigh. “So this is it?” It couldn’t be.
