Page 64 of The Catch

“You think everything is so easy,” she muttered, half to herself.

“It was easy until right now.” He pulled his t-shirt over his head. His eyes had turned into an icy blue, looking jaded and impatient, and she felt the conversation slipping somewhere they had yet to travel together.

She abandoned his breakfast. “Okay,” she said, trying to sound rational, open to a counter-argument. Maybe he could enlighten her. “So I’ll just give up my condo, my life here, and move into yours, and then what? You’re asking me to put a lot on the line. What if it doesn’t work out?”

“And what if this is exactly what we think it is?” He pushed his chair out and came to stand across from her, dipping his head to force her to meet his eyes. “If anyone should have any doubts, it should be me. I’ve done this before. I know how it could turn out, but I told you I’m not scared. Why are you so afraid?”

Cat’s cheeks glowed with irritation. They’d been over this; he knew exactly what she was scared of. He’d made her explain it to him, tell him the whole sorry story. “Just because I didn’t have a ring on my finger doesn’t make my experiences any less valid, Josh. I have reasons for the way I feel too. Micah—”

“I’m not him,” he said, cutting her off before she could finish the argument he obviously knew was coming. “I think I’ve proven that.”

“No, you’re not.” She came around the island that separated them, tipping her chin up toward his face. “You’re the opposite, Josh. He dragged his feet, and you dive in headfirst. Whatever happened to just making a plan and seeing it through? Looking before you leap? Because if we do this thing, and we don’t land where you think we will, I’m the one who loses. Again.”

“Okay then, Cat, what’s the plan? I told you we could go at your pace, but you gotta tell me what that pace is. Throw me a bone here. Are we heading where I think we are, or am I wasting my time?”

“Why is figuring that out wasting time?” Her exasperation rang in her heightened pitch, but she couldn’t seem to cap it. “You have somewhere else you need to be? You can’t wait and see what happens?”

“So, that’s what we’re doing here? Just seeing what happens?”

“That’s not all we’re doing, but I’m not like you, Josh. You let your gut guide you. You jump into things because you feel a certain way, and maybe that’s what I should be worried about. You let your heart make all your decisions, but you’ve been wrong before.”

The impact of her words appeared on his face instantly, and she winced. She hadn’t meant it—not that part.

Josh’s lip curled up ever so slightly, and he nodded, turning his head to refocus his gaze over her shoulder. “I have been wrong before,” he said, sounding as if she’d sucked the air out of his lungs. “That was a big one, and I paid for it. I guess I’m still paying for it if that’s what you want to use as your excuse.”

“Josh,” she whispered, her stomach churning with remorse.

“No, Cat, look, I say this is right for us, that I know beyond a doubt that this is different than anything I’ve felt before, but maybe I am wrong.Again.” He stepped past her into the living room, and she followed him, her heartbeat ringing in her ears.

“Wait…”

“Wait for what? Wait for you to decide if we have a right to what we have? Wait to see if there’s another way I can prove myself to you? If you don’t want to move in together, that’s okay. Really, it is, but you need to tell me what we’re doing here.” He walked to the front door where his shoes were set on the floor, and he yanked them on.

“What are you doing?”

“I should go.” He picked up his overnight bag from where he’d dropped it the night before and slung it over his shoulder.

“We’re supposed to go to Emma’s,” she said, her throat tightening around the words. Hot tears burned the corners of her eyes, and she turned her head away to keep them from materializing.

“Tell them I’m sorry, all right?” He grabbed his keys from the hook next to hers, his knuckles white as he clutched them. “You know, at least when Sarah left me, she was choosing someone else who made her happy. You? You’re trying to choose between being with me and being alone as if that might be better.”

Her heart took off in a sprint. “I’m not leaving you, Josh. That’s never what I was saying.”

He pulled in a long breath, letting it out through his nose before speaking. “I’m not leaving you either,” he said, crossing the few steps between them and dropping a stiff kiss on her cheek. “I’m just going home. I’ll call you later.”

Twenty-four

“Where’s Josh?” Adam asked, immediatelyupon opening the door.

“Good to see you too.”

Adam folded his arms across his chest as Cat pushed past him. She placed the bowl she was carrying on his kitchen counter and shrugged off her coat.

“Are you not answering on purpose?”

“He had to go home. Do you have a serving spoon for this?”

“In that drawer,” he answered, pointing across the room.

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