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I can’t let myself look at her as she leads the way up the stairs, just like last night. I knew if I let myself fully appreciate her in that fucking dress, I’d never be able to hold it together. And those boots? I dreamed about peeling them off her last night. As it was, I wanted to follow Sutton’s example and take her into a storage room for a quickie. Even in her current hoodie and leggings, the sway of her hips in front of me is almost more than I can resist.
At my front door, she pauses, waiting for me to catch up. Her eyes are unsure, emerald pools gazing up at me full of questions. She’s not wearing any makeup, but she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. My tiny, fierce chipmunk. I fucking love her, claws and all.
I know exactly how I feel, but one look at her face is enough to tell me that she doesn’t. Her eyes dart around the hallway, looking everywhere but at me. The hope her presence ignited in me fizzles out. If after everything we’ve been through she’s still uncertain, will she ever know?
If I let her inside, I’ll let her walk all over me again. This woman will have me helpless to resist her. Inside my apartment, or inside my heart.
There’s no running away to the Coast Guard to nurse my broken heart this time. I’ll see her five days a week. More, if Liam and Emma have anything to do with it.
How long can I let her string me along? Forever. But is smothering her with my need going to be good for either of us in the end? For the first time in my life, I push away my need to take care of someone. For my own sake, I need to end this uncertainty.
“Frankie?” I clear my throat, my words stuck. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. For you to come inside, I mean.”
Her face falls. “You don’t?” Silently, she hands me the second coffee cup.
I take it, my fingers brushing hers. For a moment, I second-guess my actions. There’s still a spark between us. Am I really willing to give up the idea of us being more than friends?
Can I live with us being just friends? Can I live with being together but always worried I’m too much for her? Which scenario is the one I can live with?
If all I want is for her to be happy, I have to give her the chance to be with someone who she wants as much as I want her. And maybe, for once, I deserve to be with someone who is as invested in the relationship as I am.
“I’m sorry, Frankie. I appreciate you coming, I do. But I don’t think this is a good idea. Besides, you’re safe now. You won’t have to worry about Derek anymore, so there’s no need for us to continue the charade. Right?”
Her shoulders slump, but I don’t reach out to gather her up in my arms, no matter how badly I want to. “I get it. You were right, you know? I was being a shitty friend, and you deserve better than that.”
Straightening up, she finally looks me in the eye, a tear spilling over and tracking down her cheek. I hate everything about this. My battered heart gives a hopeful thump in my chest before I wall it back up. “You have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. Of all the things I’ve been scared of my whole life, falling for the person who made me feel the safest was the most terrifying of all. But I’m not enough for you. You love with your whole heart, and I am constantly running away from you. You deserve to be with someone braver than me.”
She turns and bolts down the stairs, but I don’t follow. I can’t move, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my fingertips, hear it rushing and pulsing in my head.
“You two are worse than my mom and Teddy.” My front door is open, Emma’s face peeking through. “Do I have to save you too?”
Stunned at everything that just happened, I step inside and close the door behind me. “Where’s Liam?”
“Showering. I made him go, he stank so bad.” Emma makes a face, then laughs. “But seriously, I helped Teddy win back my mom. Do I need to help you win back Frankie? I’m kind of an expert now.”
I shake my head. “No thanks, Emma. I don’t think you can fix this one.”
I drop onto my couch, my legs too tired, and my heart too heavy to stay on my feet. “I appreciate the offer, though.”
Emma perches on the arm of the couch. “You can’t just give up. I overheard my mom and Teddy talking last night—Frankie needs you to fight for her. Make her see why you two should be together.”
“Emma, I can’t make her want me. Do you think I haven’t tried that before? I tried with Liam’s mom. We were having a baby together, and it wasn’t enough to make her want to be with me. What makes you think that anything I say is going to be enough to make Frankie want it?”
“Mom says she never married you because you love so much, she couldn’t match it, and she wouldn’t stand in your way of finding it. That you deserved to be with someone who could love you as much as you loved them.” Liam’s voice is an unexpected addition to the conversation. He’s changed into jeans and a long sleeve T-shirt, his hair still damp from the shower.
His declaration is news to me. “What do you mean, Liam?”
“That when she saw how much you loved me, even before I was born, and how much you were willing to sacrifice to make sure that she and I were taken care of, she knew she couldn’t be responsible for stopping you from finding the person you’re meant to be with. She knew it wasn’t her. But if she married you like you wanted, both of you would have been doomed to years with a partner who was wrong, in the name of doing the right thing.”
Kim had said something along those lines back when I’d asked her to marry me for the third time, when Liam was two. But I’d been so hurt by her rejection, I’d never stopped to think that maybe she had a point.
“When did she tell you this?”
“Before she and Martin got married. I asked her why you guys never did.” He shrugs, and a cracked corner of my heart, the part that never really understood why Kim rejected me so forcefully, mends itself. “You guys never fight or argue. Not like my friend’s parents who are divorced and shit.”
“Language,” I remind him with a look at Emma.
She laughs. “Don’t worry about me. My mom let me swear when I took algebra and she had to help me. The rule was that all swearing was allowed for the time we spent working on it.” She shudders. “We spent a long time working on it.”
