“Is that what you really want?”
“No.” He put his hands in his pockets. “It’s not.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“I’m not a complicated man.” His smile came back with most of its usual warmth, and her anger melted away. It left grief in its wake, stinging her eyes, and that was even worse.
“I think you are.” She brushed the tears from her eyes, feeling frustrated.
Kekoa closed the distance between them in one long stride.He took her face in both hands and kissed her soundly.
A shock went through her – and then she melted into him, all her worries subsumed by a sudden warmth, no words in her head at all. It was a peace unlike anything she had ever known.
Then, just as suddenly, he stepped back again.
The cool night air rushed in, and Laurie shivered.
“I can’t do casual, Laurie. Not with you. And if you’re not ready for a relationship, I get it. I won’t push. But I can’t handle anything in between. My heart can’t take it.”
He stood there for a moment more, like he was waiting for her to speak. But she had no words. Her hands hung useless at her sides. They longed for the warmth of his waist, where they had rested just moments ago.
“You don’t feel the same way,” he said sadly.
“How can I know?” she asked.
Did any two people ever feel the exact same way about anything?
It didn’t make sense.
If he meant marriage, then no. She wasn’t ready for that. They hadn’t even been on a date. But how many hours had they spent together the past year? As many as most people who were formally dating each other, surely?
But what about their children? Nothing was as simple as he wanted to pretend.
She stood rooted to the earth as her brain roared back to life with all of its anxieties, all of its questions.
Kekoa seemed to take her confusion as a confirmation. There was a quiet grief in his eyes that tore at her heart.
“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered, tears pricking her eyes.
“I don’t want to lose you either. But this – you and me – Ican’t do this halfway. If we start something, Laurie, I’m all in. I’m crazy about you. I need to know that there’s at least a chance of something real.”
It’s real to me, she wanted to say. But she was so full of feeling that she couldn’t find her words.
Kekoa seemed to take her silence as a confirmation. He nodded once, then turned and walked away.
As she watched his back recede into the darkness, Laurie was filled with an immediate regret. She went to the porch steps and sat down, curling into herself.
Maybe this was for the best.
She wanted him desperately, but how could she know if that would last? How could she know they would be good together? What made her think that she could make him happy?
She didn’t want to upend their lives.
She didn’t want to ruin their friendship.
And she was terrified that she already had.
11
