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“I love you too,” she said. “See, that wasn't that hard, was it? Now just go tell him.”
I knew she was right. I knew honesty was going to be the best way to move forward, one way or another.
I just had to hope that when the time came, I had the courage and the voice to do it.
Turns out that I needed longer than a two-hour dinner, which had been incredibly delicious at some secluded little restaurant downtown, and more than the car ride home in order to find my voice.
And I wasn't the only one. Crossland had spoken about everythingbutour contract. He'd talked about the upcoming poker game, and the antics of Ethan’s relatively new dog. He talked about his restlessness and even brought up those small-town dreams we joked about in his kitchen the other day. Not once had he even tiptoed toward the conversation he had to know that we were due to have.
There was no way he didn't know that today was the last day of our contract.
“Do you want to order in dessert?” Crossland asked as he slipped off his suit jacket and laid it over the armchair in his bedroom.
I was doing the same after-dinner routine, slipping out of the cocktail dress I'd been wearing, and the incredibly beautiful strappy heels as well, reaching for my pajamas like this was any other night. Like this wasn't the last night that I'd be spending with him according to the piece of paper we signed at the beginning of this whole thing.
I settled into my pajamas, turning to face him, my nerves on edge. “I don't think I could eat another thing,” I said, willing the adrenaline in my body to calm.
Ask him, ask him, ask him, the voice inside my head was begging me to put us out of our misery. But coward that I was, I was desperate forhimto bring it up. I felt like if he would just open that door, I'd be able to walk through it with a little bit more strength, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to be the one to open it.
“Okay,” he said, reaching for me from where he’d settled on the edge of the bed, a pair of dark blue silk pajamas the only thing covering him.
I went to him without hesitation.
He tugged me between his thighs, the two of us eye level even though he was sitting and I was standing. My fingers fluttered to his bare shoulders, greedy as I savored each touch in case it was my last chance to do so.
His lips found mine in a lazy sort of connection, one that screamed we had all the time in the world to do exactly this. And I swear I almost whimpered at the familiarity in it.
Crossland pulled back, that effortless smile on his face. “Is there anything in particular you'd like to bring tomorrow?”
I furrowed my brow, tilting my head.
“I mean, you haven't packed, so I wasn't sure if you wanted me to pack for you or if you wanted me to bring in the team so you'd have something special to wear,” he continued, shrugging. “I don't care what you wear,” he added. “I was just wondering what you wanted?”
When I still stared at him blankly, he laughed softly, his hands gently squeezing my hips.
“You didn't forget, did you? Tomorrow, upstate New York? You, me, Bristol, and her husband, the level one trauma center dedication?”
“That’s tomorrow,” I said, my mind churning around his insistence. “As in November eleventh,” I said, stating the date out loud thinking it might jog his memory that November tenth was the end of our contract. November eleventh would mean that there was no contractual obligation for us to continue seeing each other.
One of his hands slid up my body to cut my cheek. “Yeah,” he said. “November eleventh. You didn't make plans, did you?”Those Arctic blue eyes of his almost looked worried, so I quickly shook my head.
“Of course not,” I said, leaning into his embrace. “I just...”
God, just say it. Just bring it up.
But it was so hard. It was just so damn hard to bring up something as drastic as that when he was holding me so intimately, that hope in his eyes that I would be by his side tomorrow for something that was so incredibly important to him.
Maybe I didn't need to bring it up right now.
Maybe with how important this dedication was to him, he'd forgotten about the deadline.
Maybe bringing it up would only cause him stress that he didn't need, especially when this was going to be honoring his parents.
The more I thought about it, the more relaxed I felt.
I could ask him about it after the dedication. I could do that for him.
“I just didn't realize what day it was,” I said instead of laying my heart out and forcing a choice on him that he probably wasn't in an emotional state to make. “What would you like me to wear?” I asked, shifting easily into the role I'd played the last three months. The role I was quite certain I could play every day for the rest of my life.
