Page 59 of Playing for Love

He was still there. The bright sun cast him in a hazy unreal glow. A million things went through my mind at once then, as my heart thudded like I’d been shot up with speed. I sat up. Mom. I was supposed to meet her for breakfast. Why was Gabe still here? With me. I met his eyes. Had I imagined his cruel breakup last night? Putting a hand to my face, feeling my swollen eyes, reality slithered around the edges of my mind, like a snake I didn’t trust.

“Good morning,” he said. He wasn’t smiling as he studied me. My mind was still spinning, but I knew there was something not right about him still being here, something not logical about him staying all night to stare at me sleeping after ending our relationship in one brutal sentence.

My phone rang and he handed it to me.

“How are you doing, honey?” It was Mom and she spoke in her consoling voice. Did she know? How could she?

“To tell you the truth, Mom, I’m confused. Can I call you back?” I said it more for his benefit than my mother’s. I’d have to explain it all later to her, after I got it all straight in my own head.

Saying goodbye and promising to call later, I put the phone aside gently on the bed. And I looked back at him. He leaned forward in his chair and, reaching out a hand, caressed my cheek with the back of his knuckles. I shuddered.

“Why are you still here?”

He shrugged as if it was nothing of course, because he was automatically a kind person.

“I stayed because you had me worried. After you fell asleep, your phone rang and it was your mother, so I answered it. I didn’t want her to worry.”

“Of course not.”

He stood and paced around. I watched him, admired his body, felt my heart race as he melted it with his words.

“She told me about you, I told her about us. We decided this, your reaction last night, was delayed grief for your father’s death, that you hadn’t fully processed it all.” He stopped and watched my face. “Your mother said you’d leaned on Paul long past when you should have broken it off with him. Until you got the call for the job.” He paused and I didn’t comment, didn’t deny or disagree with anything. He resumed pacing.

“The job that your father had pulled strings to get for you. Your mother said you hadn’t wanted to go, to come to Boston, but she knew you had to, had to get away from Paul and so she admitted she guilted you into taking the job by reminding you that your father had gone to the trouble of getting it for you, that he had faith in your ability to do it.

“She told me you’re not a frail person, the opposite. Too strong to allow yourself to grieve. But we both think you need to grieve properly.”

“Your mother cried and I consoled her. She was easier than you to console.”

I didn’t acknowledge that, feeling the shame of a crazy person after an episode, not that I’d ever had such an episode before in my life. But then maybe that was the problem—if Gabe was right.

Squinting at him through sore, swollen lids, knowing I looked horrible and not caring, I said, “Aren’t you supposed to be at practice?”

“A half hour ago,” he said, appearing calm. For some reason this alarmed me. Football was supposed to mean everything to him, being early to practice had been his trademark. Throwing the covers off I bounced from the bed. “If you leave now, before the worst of rush hour, you can make it there in less than thirty minutes.” I saw his jacket draped over a chair and snatched it up, tossing at him. “Go, Wyatt. What are you waiting for?”

I pushed him, shoved him to the door, panic rising up irrationally. What did it matter to me if he was late? “Football is what you want, what you’ve chosen. Go to your mistress now.”

Stopping at the door, holding his jacket crumpled in one hand, he gave me that look again, the same one he had on his face when he walked in last night, the kind of look that reached out and squeezed my heart with a grip of pain.

“Mia—”

“Don’t. Don’t say anything.” It was hard to breathe, but I concentrated on heaving the air in and out of my lungs, keeping my eyes on his, seeing the regret, seeing the vulnerability of a man who had no idea what he was giving up.

But was it up to me to tell him? I couldn’t. Couldn’t bear to have him not listen, not believe me. I would not beg him.

Even though he’d spent the night at my bedside. Even though I had no idea what that meant, whether it meant anything. He could choose me or not. I could choose him or not. Was I so sure I wanted him? Not unless he wanted me the same way. Above all else.