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“I hate being in crowds like this, where everyone is watching me,” he admitted. “It’s different than playing a game. Behind your helmet, in the huddle with your team, it’s not just about you. That’s why I loved playing even when I didn’t love football. Because it was about your team. Your teammates. Guys like Chris who became my family. But I hate being on display for something that’s this fucking hard.”
I watched his face. The tie was perfectly straight, perfectly even. I didn’t need to fidget with it anymore, but I wasn’t going to be the one to step back. I’d fiddle with that damn tie for the next hour if I could get away with it.
“You didn’t love football?” I asked quietly.
“Not really.” The hoarse answer sparked goose bumps along my arms.
“Why not?” Slowly, I brushed my hands along the front of his shirt, smoothing out invisible wrinkles. I wondered if he realized that he leaned into my touch.
“I was good at it,” he said. “But I only kept going because it made my dad so happy. It was theonlything that made him happy. Somewhere along the line, I kept going because it was the best way I knew how to take care of my family.” His throat worked on a long swallow, his eyes boring relentlessly into mine. “But it hurt people too. Carrying someone else’s dream.”
We were speaking in hushed whispers, ignoring everything else going on around us.
Burke wasstillcarrying dreams. Heavy ones too. Almost like it was the only thing he knew how to do, and setting that aside was impossible for him to imagine.
My hands stopped moving, resting lightly over his heart.
Let me in.
Let me in.
Let me in.
Each time I thought it, I imagined another string looping around us, and I desperately wanted them there. In my mind, they grounded us together. They served as an explanation for how everything between us had shifted and changed.
Maybe we had started with no strings, but they were there now.
Whether he was ready to admit it, whether he was purposely adding space between us or not.
Getting his own hotel room was a perfect example. His intentions were noble, true to what he’d told me earlier. But it was still his way of ignoring the things binding us together.
That’s the only way I could describe it. His entire body was tense, held back by an unseen contraption of his own making. And me—I was doing my best not to melt against his body and see what happened if I did.
He had his own strings holding him back. And it wasn’t my responsibility to cut them.
“I don’t know how to give you the thing you deserve,” he said.
My face must’ve registered confusion, because he stepped back. My hands fell off his chest, hanging limply at my side.
“I haven’t asked for anything,” I told him quietly. “And you’ve never asked me what I want.”
“Charlotte.”Weary.It was the only way I could describe his voice. Weary and defeated.
I rolled my lips together and decided to make a calculated retreat.
Today—this moment—was not the time.
My aunt Daphne was right—I was perfectly capable of telling him, unprompted, what I wanted. But that didn’t mean I needed to take a battering ram to an otherwise fragile moment.
Exhaling slowly, I let him see everything in my face.
That I wanted him. And that I was frustrated with what he’d just admitted.
“Just promise me something,” I told him.
“What?”
“Promise me you aren’t going to apologize for kissing me. Or tell me that we shouldn’t have. Because I might strangle you with that very nice tie.”
