AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She went as pale as if he wrapped both hands around her delicate throat and squeezed. “I’m not. I just assumed that with the phone calls and the dinners and today, the letter, that maybe we were going somewhere. I don’t know where yet.” She blinked and the sheen of wet in her eyes twisted something way down deep. “I don’t have to know. I’m okay with that.”
“You say you are but you want me to take off my ring. To cancel the billboards.”
She shoved her hair behind her ears, which only exposed her vulnerable eyes more. “I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did. Maybe in not so many words but you did. You’re asking me for things I’m not ready to give. I’m not saying that’s unfair. Fuck, I don’t know if it is or it isn’t.” He rubbed a hand over his head and tried not to remember her lips had just been there moments ago “This is on me, Rory. I know that. I’m the one who asked you to lunch that first day. Who invited you back to my apartment, who called you that night. I’ve pushed every step of this. God knows, I want you in my life but what the hell does that matter if I can’t be the man you deserve?”
“How do you know that? This is all so new. Sam, we have time. There’s no rush. I’m sorry if I pushed.” She shook her head. “I guess I got greedy. I can wait for you. I want to wait.”
Sam met her gaze and held it even when he wanted to look away. The tears she didn’t bother to disguise wrecked him. What kind of asshole made a person as sweet and unguarded as Rory cry?
He did. Just like he’d made Dani cry. Over and over again.
They weren’t the same and this situation sure wasn’t. This thing with Rory had grown from the embers of his relationship with Dani and maybe that was why it was doomed to fail. She thought he was some sad, poetic guy with a kitten. Truth was he was a cracked shell around a lot of unglued parts she’d somehow started to help him put back together again.
She’d given him so much the past few weeks. A way to beat back the loneliness. Laughter. Hope. Passion. Maybe they’d be able to take enough away from this experience to heal. Both of them. She had pain she carried too. Not on the same scale but if they’d helped each other in some small way, this hadn’t been a mistake.
The best thing he could do for them both was stop pretending he could make a life in this netherworld between the past and the future. He had to make a choice and he couldn’t do that when she was sitting here, unraveling his heart with her tears.
“You’re really late for work,” he muttered, shifting her on his lap so he could awkwardly stuff himself back into his boxers. “Can’t have making you any later on my conscience.”
“Yeah,” she agreed woodenly, swiping her fingers under her eyes. “Time to go.”
The sign place wasn’t far away, one of the reasons he’d known where to go when he’d come up with the billboard idea. He’d passed by JD Signage every day for years without knowing she was inside. So beautiful. So dangerous to every wall he’d built around his life. “Did you walk? Want me to drive you?”
“I drove, thanks.” She adjusted her clothes and walked to the door, not sparing him a glance as she reached for the knob. “Have a good afternoon.”
He could fill in the rest that she didn’t say. Have a nice life, fucker.
The door opened and closed and then he was alone. Again.
Selfishly, he wanted to chase after her and try to explain. But what he could say? A couple orgasms couldn’t erase all that had come before. Nor could long, teasing nights of conversation. Even if he knew she’d touched somewhere inside him far deep
er than that, there was nothing he could do.
The course he was on had been set a long time ago. He’d made an oath to himself not to forget. He owed a debt to Dani, whatever the cost to himself.
Whatever the cost to Rory.
“Bullshit,” he whispered into the silence, wondering when the music on the other side of the door had stopped.
Was this what he wanted? A life where he remained alone in some sort of homage to Dani? He’d loved her desperately and he’d messed up. Though he’d tried to fix things, it hadn’t worked. But when she’d died, she was moving back toward happiness. She was trying to find some peace. She’d even told him she forgave him for all that had occurred between them and she wished him well.
So wasn’t it time he stop burying her over and over again? Proving he could out-suffer any widow wouldn’t bring her back. And it would hurt someone who cared about him. Why, he wasn’t sure. But he wasn’t about to destroy that little green shoot that seemed determined to push up between the sidewalk cracks without giving it a chance to grow.
Maybe the timing wasn’t wrong at all. Maybe that he’d met Rory through the billboards he’d done for Dani was another gift he’d been given. Dani on the other side looking out for him. Somebody needed to, because he sure didn’t know how to himself.
Sam scrubbed his hands over his face and stumbled to his feet. He opened the door and started out into the shop then stopped, closing his eyes. Work wasn’t the answer. Burying himself in his grief in his apartment wasn’t either. He could punch the bag hanging from the ceiling or pour out his pain on paper or he could finally face reality. As difficult as it was.
First on his own, then maybe he’d see about facing it with Rory.
Chapter Nine
Dani,
What if I don’t write these letters anymore? No one would care, right? You don’t know they exist. No one will ever read them but me. But somewhere out there, the love we used to have waits. It deserves a good wake and I don’t know how to stop mourning. Once I do, I’ll have to move on. The excuses will be gone. Then the only thing holding me back will be me and I won’t have anything to hide behind.
~ Sam
