Page 103 of Stay for Me
He sighs. “This. What we’re doing with each other. I can’t do it anymore.”
For a moment, I’m stunned. What the hell happened out there? When we talked this morning, it was him grabbing me and pulling me out of sight so he could kiss me while Sebastian went to get his gear. He was excited about us sneaking off, and now he suddenly can’t do this?
“I don’t understand.”
He rubs his face and starts to pace. “We’re both lying to each other, Brenna.”
“I have never lied to you.”
Jacob’s green eyes are a myriad of emotions that are moving so fast I can’t determine any of them. “No?”
“No.”
“Tell me you don’t feel more than just casual about whatever it is we’re doing. Tell me that your feelings for me are nothing more than friendship.”
I take a step back, and my stomach drops. That would be a lie. I feel so much more. I feel alive and happy, and I want him so much that tears threaten to form. It’s not just want though. It’s more than that. It’s a need that’s bone deep.
My breath comes out in short bursts. “I can’t do that.”
“Neither can I.” Jacob advances on me and settles his hands on my hips.
What I thought was being stunned before pales in comparison to this. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I can’t do this anymore, this casual thing where I pretend that I’m not completely falling for you.”
I close my eyes, trying to keep my breathing normal. Here I am, trained and certified to help people get through situations, and I am lost on this one. Everything that we’ve said from the beginning and all I’ve been trying to deny is right in my face.
“Why? You’re going to leave.”
His finger glides down, tracing my jaw. “Ask me to stay for you.”
I shake my head. “I won’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s one thing to know that someone is leaving and accept the reality of the situation. It’s another to think they’ll stay and then have them leave. That’s why I survived losing Luke.” Jacob’s silence tells me he doesn’t understand what I’m saying. “As a military wife, you form this understanding with God and your spouse that, one day, they might not walk back through that door. Hell, you spend months before a deployment planning for that loss. In some part of my heart, I always believed that my time with Luke was finite. What I got was a gift because, at any moment, it could be gone.”
“I’m an actor, not a pilot.”
“I know that. My point is that we had a defined time, Jacob. We had months to be whatever it was we wanted to be. I did my best to accept that. I have been trying to mentally prepare for you to leave. I’m falling for you—no, I’ve already fallen for you, but that was okay for me because you were leaving.”
He releases a sigh. “So, you don’t want to ask me to stay?”
“No, I don’t because if you leave, then what?”
I’m also not stupid enough to ask a question I don’t want the answer to.
“The answer might surprise you.”
It also might not.
My hands rest on his shoulders, and I move to cup his face. “Then surprise me in a few months. Don’t make me ask. If your feelings for me are strong enough, then . . . then stay for me.”
He gives me a kiss, it’s soft and sweet and filled with a sense of new beginnings. “I’m going to be really bad at this,” he warns me.
“What?”
“Being more. I’ve never had a relationship that wasn’t built on the fact that it would never be anything else.”
