Page 55 of On the Line

I send her a questioning look.

“Just texting Paige to ask about the sleeping arrangements,” she tells me.

I take a few steps toward her and she takes a deep gulp, like she’s swallowing down all her feelings and fears.

“I can sleep on the couch again, Lauren. It’s not a big deal.”

“I think it’s my turn to sleep on the couch,” she says with a nervous laugh.

“There are no turns here. If there’s a bed, you’re sleeping in it. End of story.”

She plants her hands on her hips. “How’s that fair?”

“It isn’t. This isn’t about fairness.”

“What’s it about then?”

“It’s about me giving you what you need. The space and the time to figure out what you want. And when you’re ready to admit that this is more than friendship, you’ll know where to find me.”

“On the couch?”

“Until you’re ready for me to be in your bed, yes.”

“Jameson,” she whispers my name. “I’m not a one-night stand kind of girl. I can’t do casual hookups, and I value our friendship way too much to let sex get in the way.”

I take another step closer. “What in the world have I said to make you think I wanted this thing between us to be a one-night stand?”

She looks up at me, her eyes huge and her breathing erratic. “You don’t ... you don’t do relationships.”

Is this what she’s believed all along? That all I ever wanted with her was a casual hookup? When I said I’d wait until she was ready, did she think I meant ready to sleep with me and nothing more?

“Ididn’tdo relationships.”

Her eyes search my face. “What changed?”

My mind wars with itself. Being honest opens me up to being hurt, but at the same time, it was my lack of openness that made me lose her in the first place. And that’s not a risk I’m willing to take again.

“You showed up in my life and reminded me that you were what I’d wanted all along.”

“But ...” she stammers. “We’refriends.”

“There is no world in which I want to be your friend, Lauren. That world has never and will never exist for me.”

There, now my truth is out in the open. And it’s up to her to decide what she wants to do with it.

Her phone rings in her hand, and in the silence of the room, it’s alarmingly loud. She glances down at it, and her finger hovers over the “decline” button, but then she looks up at me. “It’s Morgan.”

“You’d better take it, then.” There’s no way she should ignore that call when Morgan’s at home with her kids.

She looks down at the phone, then back up at me, but the moment is broken. I can feel it, and so can she.

“I have work emails I need to send,” I say, stepping back. “You should answer the phone.”

I can see in her eyes that she’s not sure she’s ready for this—there was a sense of relief when the call came through. So I’m going to respect that and make it easy for her, even though I know she’s wrong. Sheisready. But she’s scared.

Her life has been flipped upside down these past few months. The one thing in this world she doesn’t need is to be pressured into something she doesn’t feel ready for. So I can wait as long as it takes.

CHAPTER17

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