Jack gets up and takes a few steps away before turning and looking back at me. “What would be the point of that? We’ve been together eight months, Anastasia. Eight months should be plenty of time to decide whether or not you want to spend the rest of your life with someone. I mean, your brother and Tessa?—”
“Knew each other for an entire lifetime, Jack.” I stand now. “And they are head over heels, madly in love.”
“And we’re not?”
“Do you really believe that we are?” I move down the steps. “I mean, deep down, in your heart, do you really feel madly, head over heels, crazy drunk in love with me?”
He opens his mouth to respond, then hesitates. “I do love you.”
“Sure. But I watched the way Garrison and Katelyn fell. I saw what my brother and Tessa went through to be together, and I can’t help but wonder why that’s not us.”
“You don’t think I’d protect you? That I wouldn’t fight for you?” He crosses his arms, pride wounded.
I close my eyes. Come on, Anastasia. “I know you would. But when the dust clears and everything settles back down, I still don’t think it would mean the same.” With the small velvet box in my hand, I walk the rest of the way down the steps and hand it to him. “I don’t deserve this.”
“Because you don’t love me.”
“Not in the way you want me to. And not in the way I want to love the man I marry, either.”
Jack takes the velvet box and sticks it into his pocket. His steel grey eyes level on me beneath the faint porch lights. “I hope he deserves you.”
“What? Who?”
Jack swallows hard, his gaze never leaving mine. “Sawyer.”
My pulse jumps at the mere mention of his name. “What are you talking about?”
Jack laughs softly, but there’s not a whole lot of humor in it. “Come on, Anastasia. You’re not that blind.”
“You don’t get to stand there and pretend that you never saw the way I looked at you.” Sawyer’s words from six months ago echo in my mind. Am I really the only one who didn’t see it?
“We were just friends. Now, we’re not really much of anything.”
Jack snorts. “Can’t blame the guy for that. I wouldn’t want to watch the woman I loved be with someone else.” He takes a deep breath. “Look, if you don’t want to admit it to yourself, then fine. But remember that he spent six years standing beside you and never took that leap. I knew after the first month that I was in love with you, and I chose to do something about it. If he was worth it, wouldn’t he have fought for you?”
His tone is sharp, his words meant to slice straight to the bone. I wrap my arms around myself and try to ignore the sting. He’s hurt, and that’s my fault.
“Sawyer and I were only ever friends, Jack.”
He nods. “Keep telling yourself that, and that’s all you’ll ever be. Can you unlock the door? I’d like to hit the road.”
The thought of him driving after everything that happened tonight scares me. “You can stay. Leave tomorrow. Or, stay the weekend like you planned. We can still?—”
“Anastasia, we’re over. I can’t slow down what I feel for you. I’m ready to start a family, and you’re not. At least, not with me. I want to go home so I can do what I can to shake this evening off of me and move forward with my life.”
I swallow hard, pain compressing my lungs until I can’t breathe. My hands shake as I withdraw the keys from my purse and head up the steps. As I push open the door and step into the dark, it’s all I can do to keep from completely losing it.
Whether I am in love with Jack or not, I care for him. After tonight, he won’t be in my life anymore. All because I just couldn’t bring myself to say yes.
“I can’t believe you insisted on opening today.” Tessa takes a sip of her coffee.
“It’s my business. I can’t shutter the windows because I’m going to be an old maid forever.”
Katelyn snorts. “You are not going to be an old maid.”
The three of us are seated at a table in the back corner of my coffee shop. There is only one other person here, and he’s too engulfed by the book he’s reading to care that the three of us are over here talking about the hit my love life took last night.
“I might be. It’s okay. I’ll be the weird aunt who spoils all her nieces and nephews.” Jack didn’t say another word to me when he left last night, but he did offer me the courtesy of texting to let me know he’d made it home safely.
