Page 219
BISHOP
Ilet her get eight steps away.
Then I realize I'm doing exactly what I've spent my entire fucking life doing. Standing still while something I want slips through my fingers because I'm too busy thinking about everybody else.
Fuck that.
“Becks.”
She stops, but she doesn't turn around. I take two steps at a time until I'm standing a couple of feet below her.
“Look at me.”
She turns, and the expression she’s wearing nearly does me in. Not anger. Not even disappointment…It’s worse. She's trying so fucking hard to understand.
I reach for her hand.
“I don't know how to do this without screwing something up,” I tell her. “But I know I don't want to watch you walk away because I'm too fucking scared to try.”
Her fingers tighten around mine. “Bishop—”
“I've spent years coming up with reasons why I shouldn't want you. And every single one of them made sense until you moved into my apartment.”
I take another step.
“Now I wake up looking forward to having breakfast with you. I spend half my road trips checking my phone to see if you've texted. And when I get home, the first thing I do is look for you.”
Her lips part.
“I don't know what the hell we're supposed to do with that,” I admit. “I just know I don't want to keep pretending it's not happening.”
She studies me. “And Declan?”
There it is.
The name neither of us wanted to say downstairs.
I glance toward the landing.
“He's my best friend.”
“I know.”
I rub a hand over my jaw.
“He trusts me, Becks.”
Her expression softens.
“And you think wanting me means you're betraying him?”
I don't answer. Because when she puts it like that, it sounds pretty fucking ridiculous. But it's not that simple either.
Not when the Beckett family gave me somewhere to go when I didn't have a home worth going back to. Not when Coach treated me like a son long before I gave him any reason to. Not when Declan has stood beside me through damn near everything.
Laney moves down one step, putting us nearly eye to eye.
“I'm not asking you to stop being his best friend.”
