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“You do, damn it.” Anger started to boil out of him. At her, and at himself. She’d heard about the job from his dad and not him. Yeah, it had probably looked bad. “I needed a minute to get my shit together and think about what I was supposed to say to you tonight.”
“Then say it. I’m a big girl. You want to break up? Guess what, you have to be together first. So don’t think you’re doing me any favors.”
Huck saw red. How could she think such a thing? But when he watched a small tear escape her eye, he realized that he’d hurt her. Badly.
This was a fight. But not the frustrating, kind of fun, witty banter they normally spat back and forth. This was the damage causing kind. The kind of fight that left scars and bruises on souls.
She’d put faith in him, and he’d let her down. He should have gone to her first instead of setting up all this shit and getting his head right in case she turned him down. He was busy putting up armor around himself, prepping for the worst-case scenario, and all the while Autumn was in a freefall on her own. Now he stared at a woman he was hurting—the last woman he ever wanted to hurt.
“I don’t need you, you know,” she said with a trembling voice. Another tear fell. “I knew what this was from the beginning.”
He took another step, then another, until they were face to face.
Damn it, a blade to the liver would be better than this. She was trying so hard to push him away, but she was telling him the truth through her pain. Reading Autumn was like deciphering an encrypted message. She was here, upset, and telling him what she wasn’t feeling, all while actually feeling it. It was opposite day, and Autumn was the champion of misdirection.
She did need him. And he wouldn’t let her down again.
“It’s not like I fell in love with you,” she whispered.
His heart stopped. She loved him.
Time for him to put all the maybes aside and tell her the truth.
“That’s a shame, honey,” he said, cupping her face, “Because I fell in love with you.” He kissed her hard, and the wetness from her cheeks hit his, and he wanted to kick his own ass for hurting her. She was strong. So damn strong that he felt it in everything she did. Right down to the way she was pushing him away.
But he held onto the simple fact that she loved him.
“I came to say goodbye,” she said.
It was then that Huck knew she was really different. She hadn’t left him. Wouldn’t stoop to that no matter how much easier it would have been. She’d showed up, despite how much it was obviously hurting her, just because she knew it meant not walking away from him.
God, he’d fucked up. It was time he showed her just what she meant to him.
“Come inside.”
“No.”
“There’s something I need to do, that I want to show you. After you see it, if you still want to leave, you can.”
She rolled those beautiful stormy eyes. “I know what you want to show me.” She glanced at his belt.
“Damn it, woman. Not that. Just trust me.” He opened the door, took her hand, and led her to his bedroom. “There.” He pointed inside. She stood at the doorway and looked.
“It’s your room. You want one last fuck or something? Are you trying to hurt me even more? Because this is cruel—”
“No.” Huck stomped over to his dresser and pulled it open. He grabbed up his socks and kicked the bottom drawer open and dropped them in. Then he opened the second drawer, scooped up all his T-shirts, and put them in a different drawer.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Come here and see for yourself.”
She frowned, took a few more steps, and looked. “It’s empty.”
“No shit,” he said with a smirk. “Just like over here…” He walked to the closet and flung it open. With one arm, he scooted the hanging clothes to the left side in a single swoop. Effectively and instantly clearing half of it out.
Her eyes went wide.
“Half yours, half mine. Together it’s whole…we’re whole.”
