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I walk through the layer of snow in the slim parking area until I'm close enough to lean in for a kiss. Maybe that will fix everything. Maybe, if I can just kiss her one more time, I can put us back together.
I almost make it. I can feel the heat of her breath and feel how close we are together when Renee stops me with a finger on my lips and a quiet laugh.
“It's over, isn't it? No more reason to pretend,” she says, her voice clear and soft through the December air. Is there disappointment in her tone, or am I imagining it? “Besides, you're my boss. Pretty sure you can't do that.”
My heart beats hard, sending blood rushing to my face. The beat is loud in my ears now that all the noise from the evening is gone, and...this isn't how I thought this would go. Somehow, I thought...
I want to step closer to Renee, want it so bad I can taste it, but I lean back an inch and kick at some of the rocks that came loose from the snow. I’m just trying to think of what to say but anything I could say will make this worse. The rocks land in the snow that's beginning to cover the dirt road behind the bar where we park.
I stick my hands in my pockets so I don't reach out and touch her. Because she’s right. I am her boss, and this never should have technically happened. Half of me wants to anyway. Half of me doesn't care that we were pretending. It's killing me that she thinks we were. That after everything, she still thinks it was fake.
A voice screams inside of me that she’s lying and that she doesn’t want this to end, but after the last week I have no fucking clue if I really know what’s going on in her head.
Renee's body is tucked tight to her car, her other arm over her stomach, and I think about saying it. How hard could it be to tell her the truth?
It was never pretend.
It's late, and everybody in the whole damn world is asleep, and nobody has to know what we say to each other. Nobody has to know anything, but Renee should know this.
“What if?—”
A pair of headlights shine on the snow, and a car rumbles along the dirt road, slow to account for the snow and the late hour. I lean back, but don't let myself take the step. What does it matter if they see? Why does anything matter except Renee?
But I can't keep talking when somebody might be staring out the window of their car at us. Renee and I both watch the car go. One of its wheels dips into a groove and spins.
Whoever's behind the wheel revs the accelerator and their wheel pops free of the groove. They keep driving until they're out of sight.
I turn back to Renee, but her eyes are still on the spot where that car disappeared into the night. It's clear the moment was broken by that car. I'm not going to get it back. She bites her lip, looking beautiful and determined, and I'm not sure I like where that look's going. Car or not, maybe I was already too late. Maybe it was never on the table for this to be real.
Renee lets out a little sigh, her breath white in the cold. It dissipates quickly, and I keep my hands pushed into my pockets.
She looks up at me, and it feels like she's a million miles away instead of half a step across a dirt parking area.
“All the what ifs don't add up when it comes to us, Griffin.”
There's a beat where I think she might take it back, but her face doesn't fall and her eyes don't soften and she doesn't. She opens the driver's side door of her car and climbs in.
I wrap my hand around the top of the door frame as she puts on her seatbelt. It clicks into place, and I want to reach down and undo it. I could take her hand and pull her out of the car and kiss her. My fingers tighten on the doorframe, but I can't be the guy who holds her door open to keep her here with me.
I have to force myself to loosen my grip.
“Get home safe, Renee.”
“You, too.” Her hands are on the wheel. She looks up at me, and there's something in her eyes that makes my stomach sink. It makes me sure that someday, she's going to leave this town, and I'm never going to see her again.
I open my mouth to say something. I could tell her not to drive away. I could admit to the feeling that's taking up my whole chest. I could make her promise not to leave town. Cause it feels like I’m never going to see her again.
Based on what? Something she thinks is pretend?
Renee's watching me back, and there's a hint of indecision in her eyes, but then she takes a breath, and I don't want her to tell me to shut the door. I don't want to make her ask me to back away.
“Good night,” I tell her, and shut the door.
Renee turns away and reaches for something on the dash. Her headlights turn on, and they splash against the back door of the bar. I turn my back on Renee and stride over to my own car. She looks out her window and lifts her hand to wave to me.
I wave back, hating every second and regretting it all, while wanting it all back.
Then she backs out of her spot, her tires cutting new tracks in the snow, and pulls carefully out onto the road. Renee pauses to make sure there's no traffic, even though there hasn't been another car since the one that drove by, then starts down the road.
