“Nothing new. Just bad-talked me to Joe, tried to take credit for my work.” I arched a brow at him. “She doesn’t sound like a very nice person, does she?”
He ground his teeth together. “She’s my sister. That matters.”
“And she did a lot for you as a kid. But now, she’s hurting you and destroying us.”
“No, you are. You’re making me choose.”
We were talking in circles. He would not see how he was coddling Sophia, and how it was spilling over into the way he saw me. God, how could his love for his sister destroy our relationship? How could it end my feelings for him?
It couldn’t. Honestly, the fact that he tried so hard with Sophia tugged at my heart. But I couldn’t sit by and watch it destroy him. So I stood up, pulled my hand out of his, and backed away from his bed.
“It’s late,” I said. “We’re both tired.”
He looked up, his jaw hard, but when he spoke, his voice was laced with alarm. “We can’t leave it like this. Not… not after what you said.”
“That I love you?”
“Yes.”
I waited. He needed to say the words back to me. He needed to give me hope that he would fight as hard for me as he did for Sophia, but he remained stubbornly silent. And eventually, I lost hope.
“I need to get some sleep,” I said as I turned around.
“You’re the one making me choose.”
I hesitated, but I didn’t turn around. He was right. I was forcing him to pick. But maybe I’d been wrong about the timing. He’d wrecked his knee right before the pennant race. He was doped up on painkillers, and now, I’d just hurt him even more, all on a night when he needed comfort.
God, I sucked.
I turned back to him and said the only true compromise I could see. “You don’t have to decide tonight. I’ll still be around tomorrow, and the day after, and probably the day after that.”
His expression narrowed. “Probably?”
I shrugged. “I won’t wait forever. I love you, but I won’t climb into the Sophia prison with you.”
“You’re exaggerating. That’s just what you marketers do. You exaggerate and—”
“Lie?”
He buttoned his lip, and my heart broke at the sight. He wasn’t going to face this. Maybe he couldn’t. Childhood patterns went deep, and this was a doozy. So I gave up for the night.
“I’ll stop by tomorrow,” I promised. “Try to get some sleep.” Then I gathered my keys from the counter and went home, where I cried myself to sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
Connor
I couldn’t sleep after Gia left. I wanted to blame it on the pain, but honestly, as long as I didn’t move, that wasn’t so bad. What was more agonizing was the argument I’d had with Gia, the anger I felt toward Sophia, and the fear I constantly battled for Cassie. It all swirled together, adding to the shitstorm of missing out on what could have been the best year of my career. I wanted to plant my fist through a wall. I would have headed for the scotch bottle, but that was a bad idea with painkillers. And besides, I would have to get out of bed to find it.
All in all, it was a shitty night. It got worse when I tried to get up the next morning…er, afternoon. Everything had stiffened up. And yeah, I was supposed to go support the team, but I was too depressed to do more than turn on the TV.
We lost, which made it even worse. Normally, injured or not, I’d be in the locker room trying to keep team morale up. But I was stuck in bed, steeped in a pity party that was best indulged alone. Then Cassie showed up with a pizza and ruined even that.
She got me out of bed and into a shower, grabbed some ice for my knee, and then stuffed me full of pepperoni. That started to turn my mood around. Even better, we watched her volleyball game together—which they won—but she was unusually silent about it. She was more worried about a political science paper, so we talked it through until Gia showed up.
Then Cassie escaped. Gia smiled at me—of course, she did—and that lit up a dark place inside me. But I noticed how worn down Gia looked. And when she opened her mouth to talk, I just shook my head.
“Can I just hold you for a while? Let’s not talk. I’m too depressed.”
