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“Do you want me to continue?”
She nodded, and he honored her request.
“Whenever I was back, she’d insist we go house-hunting or talk about financial plans for our future. I would be trying to acclimate to civilian life again, settle into a temporary schedule, and Crystal wanted to play house.”
“She loved you.” Isa’s voice held a truckload of disappointment. He tried to alleviate her fears.
“Maybe.” Love wasn’t something they’d talked about. Crystal knew what he was like—that he didn’t embrace the sentiment of swapping four-letter L-words. If there was one thing he hadn’t been successful with at all, it was love. Hell, he didn’t even know what it was in regard to anyone who wasn’t related to him. “She wanted children, a family. A house with a yard. I don’t want that.”
“Not ever?”
Great question. He didn’t feel as opposed to it as he used to. “Now I’m not sure what I want. I’ve changed in a lot of unexpected ways since I’ve come back.”
Changing had scared him more than anything. He used to know who he was…who he’d been his entire life. After literally losing a part of himself, he wasn’t sure who he was anymore. Or who he would become.
Isa snuggled down in the bed next to him, hands in prayer beneath her cheek. Her dark eyes wide with hope as she watched him and he watched her.
“So this…what we have. It’s enough for you?” Her tone was careful.
Sometimes it was more than he could handle, but he knew better than to tell her that. Instead, he took one of her hands and laced their fingers together, hoping she’d take what he was about to tell her the right way.
“I’m not sure I can give you more, but I’m not done with us, either.”
The light in her eyes dulled. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“That’s fair.”
It wasn’t. He didn’t like her heavy acceptance, but he also didn’t want her to leave. What he was asking of her made no sense. She should never settle for less than she deserved. Not running her parents’ business, not a jackass ex who only wanted to use her as a cog in the wheel of his future. But if she’d stick around long enough for Eli to figure a few things out…he’d take it.
“I need you,” he admitted. “So if you wouldn’t mind staying a little while long—”
She was on top of him in an instant, her wild hair tickling his face, her plush lips crashing into his. Eli wanted to be the man she deserved, but there was a selfish part of him who wanted her any way she’d have him.
He kissed her back, sifting her hair through his fingers and trying not to think about the fact that she, too, could run through his grip like sand.
