Page 93 of The Girlfriend Goal
"That was different."
"Different how?" Lance asked, genuinely curious. His hand played with my hair, and I fought not to melt into the touch.
"I wasn't ready to be vulnerable." The admission felt raw. "Staying the night, waking up together, it felt too real."
"And now?"
I thought about the question seriously. "Now I'm tired of running from something that makes me happy because I'm scared it might end badly."
"Everything ends badly, that's why it ends," Matt quoted. "But that doesn't mean it's not worth doing."
"Did you just quote a rom-com at me?"
"Jared's been educating me." Matt looked unashamed. "Turns out they're actually pretty good once you get past the heteronormative assumptions."
"My boyfriend, the evolved hockey bro," Jared preened. "Next I'm introducing him to Jane Austen adaptations."
"I draw the line at bonnets."
"We'll see about that."
Their playful bickering felt comfortable, normal. Like we did this every morning – the four of us navigating relationships and hangovers together. The domesticity should have terrified me, but instead it felt right.
"So what happens now?" I asked, voicing the question we'd all been avoiding. "I leave for Seattle in six weeks. You'll get drafted somewhere. We just pretend those facts don't exist?"
"Or," Lance said slowly, "we acknowledge them and choose each other anyway."
"It's not that simple."
"Why not?" He turned to face me fully. "I love you. You love me. Everything else is just logistics."
"Logistics matter. Long distance is hard. Career demands are real. What if you get drafted to Florida or New York?"
"Then we figure it out."
"That's not a plan!"
"Sure it is." His calm in the face of my anxiety only heightened my panic. "The plan is we stay together and handle challenges as they come."
"That's how people end up resenting each other," I insisted. "Making sacrifices they didn't want, compromising dreams—"
"Or," Jared interrupted, "that's how people build lives together. By choosing to face obstacles as a team instead of running at the first sign of difficulty."
"When did you become the relationship expert?"
"Since I stopped letting fear dictate my choices." He looked at Matt with naked affection. "Turns out being vulnerable with someone who loves you back is actually pretty incredible."
"Gag," I said without heat.
"You're one to talk, Miss 'Let Me Wear Your Jersey and Make Out With You on National Television.'"
Heat flooded my cheeks. "That was impulsive."
"That was honest," Lance corrected. "For once, you did what you felt instead of what you thought you should do."
He was right. The moment I'd seen him take that shot to the ribs, protecting their lead with his body, something had crystallized. All my carefully constructed walls, my logical arguments about career focus, my fear of vulnerability – none of it mattered compared to the terror of watching him in pain.
"I can't lose myself again," I said quietly. "I can't become someone who only exists in relation to their partner."
