Page 140 of Smoke and Glitter

For months, I thought hearing him say it would fix something. Instead, I believe him completely, and I am still sitting here with a broken heart.

Sam doesn't ask what that means. He doesn't reach across the space between us or try to make the fact that I believe him useful.

He waits.

I don't mean to tell him about London.

The words come anyway.

"I turned it down."

His brow pulls together. "Turned what down?"

"London, initially."

His body goes still.

I pull my gloves off because my hands have suddenly become too warm. "Anna called me while I was at your apartment. You were asleep, so I took the call in the hallway."

Sam stares at me.

"Before everything happened with us. Anna offered me the O'Keefe tour here in London. The office possibility too."

His mouth parts slightly.

"I told her no."

Nothing moves in his face for several seconds.

"It was in your apartment one morning. I think the call lasted maybe five minutes. I got back to bed with you afterward, and you put your arm over me without waking up."

Sam looks down at his hands.

I keep going because stopping would be worse.

"I lay there thinking about London and Chicago. The job I'd been working toward for years and the life I thought I was building here."

My voice threatens to go. I make it behave.

"I chose Chicago."

Sam closes his eyes.

"The reason was you."

His hands come up over his face.

My first instinct is immediate and humiliating: move closer, touch him, make this easier. Sam lowers his hands before I act on it. His eyes are red around the edges, and he doesn't ask me to fix that either.

"Fuck."

"Pretty much."

He looks away toward the path. "You turned it down for me, and then I sat downstairs telling Bex you weren't building anything around me."

The memory still has teeth.

"Yes."