“No.” She started toward him, but when he turned away, she stopped.
“I can’t do this, Zoe. I can’t do this with you while waiting for the day it’s out of your system—for the day you decide you’re bored now.” His voice cracked a bit on the last few words, and he cleared his throat as he turned back to her. “I’m not going to get you out of my system. I’m falling in love with you and it’s too fast and it doesn’t make any sense, but I am. And I...can’t do this fling thing with you.”
“I didn’t mean that, Preston.” Shehadto make him believe that. “Since Carly got married, she’s determined to see me as happy as she is and it’s like a full-court press. I didn’t want to talk to her about us yet, so I said that to buy some time to figure out how I feel. And she and I had that conversation about a fling back in the beginning. I don’t feel that way.”
“Why didn’t you want to talk about us, then? She’s your cousin. Your best friend. This—what we have, or what I thought we had—isn’t important enough to talk to her about?”
Panic was clawing at Zoe’s chest and she tried to stay calm. “You are important to me. This isn’t an easy fling for me, but I’m not ready to have Carly shoving us down the aisle, either. I wasn’t looking for that.”
“You basically said that. The sticky note in the book with the no-strings-attached fling.” The muscles in his pale face tensed as he clenched his jaw. “I should have listened.”
“No.” She knew she was butting up against some old wounds for him—the conviction that in time he’d be too boring for her—but she had wounds, too. “It’s scary, Preston. The last time I went all in on a man, I got my heart broken. I had to start over. I even lost my parents. The idea of taking the risk again when I’ve made this amazing life for myself terrifies me and I didn’t want Carly pushing at me so I told her it was just a fling. I’m sorry I said that to her.”
“The first time we kissed, you said we were surrendering to the inevitable.”
“And thenyousaid we’re incompatible because I’m abstract color to your pen and ink sketch,” she pointed out. She wasn’t the only one who’d backpedaled in this relationship.
“Maybe it’s time to surrender to the inevitable again,” he said, and she could see his meaning in the shattered look in his eyes.
And she didn’t have the strength to batter down his walls. She had no way to prove that nothing about him would ever be boring to her or to explain to him her fear that someday she might be too much for him and his orderly way of doing things.
“I should go,” she said quietly, not sure if she was telling him or herself. But the sharp nod from him was her heartbreaking answer.
He didn’t move when she walked past him to get her phone or when she turned off the oven before grabbing her purse.
She opened the door, but turned back to him. “There are strings attached, Preston. You might not believe it, but I fell for you, too. But trusting myself is...hard. I’m sorry.”
There was so much more to say, but he wasn’t ready to listen and she wasn’t going to be able to hold back the flood of tears much longer, so she closed the door and walked away.
The chocolate chip cookies weren’t crunchy. They were burnt. But Preston ate them anyway. For days he ate her burned cookies, as well as the snickerdoodles they’d made together and the snowball cookies that had made a mess of his kitchen.
He had nothing else to do. People generally didn’t like planning for their eventual demise during the holidays, so other than some paperwork and research he could do at home, his time was his own. Time to think about Zoe and what had gone wrong and how desperately he missed her.
Not having appointments meant he could skip going into the office. And that meant he didn’t have to walk by Cedar Street Books. He didn’t have to look through the window and see her looking back. He didn’t go through the steps to see the store’s Instagram pictures because it would hurt too much.
At some point, he was going to have to face her again, but he wasn’t ready yet. Honestly, he couldn’t imagine a time hewouldbe ready, but eventually work would force him back to Cedar Street.
A knock on the door made his heart leap—not because it startled him, but because it might be Zoe. But when he looked through the door’s window and saw Noah standing there, the brief flame of hope flickered and died.
Noah must have taken the look as an invitation because he let himself in, and Preston was glad he was alone, at least. He wasn’t in the mood for company at all, but he especially didn’t want to see Carly. Carly would just make him think of Zoe, and maybe kick him in the balls for making her cousin cry.
“You look rough, man,” Noah said, pulling out a seat at the table and snagging a cookie. “And these cookies are burnt.”
“Zoe made those.”
“That explains it.” He tossed the cookie back on the plate. “How you holding up? It’s been days and Carly said nobody’s seen any sign of you at the office.”
“Estate planning isn’t high on anybody’s Christmas to-do list.” When Noah only nodded, he let the silence drag on for a while before he couldn’t hold back the question any longer. “How’s Zoe?”
“Wrecked.” Preston flinched, but Noah shrugged. “Not going to sugarcoat it for you. You’re both obviously pretty wrecked, but Carly said Zoe handled her divorce better than she’s handling whatever went down with you two.”
Pain shot through him and settled in his gut like a lead ball. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“But you expected her to hurt you.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Anger burned through some of the hurt.
“Zoe’s just like the other woman you dated, right?”
