Page 128 of Honeymoon Phase
“How could it ruin you?” I ask, squeezing the pillow under my head.
She rolls over to face me, hitting me with the devastating emotion on her face. “Because what if something happens to you? I was a wreck that day you went out on that fire call. A complete mess.”
I take a risk and touch her arm, and in one breath, she shifts closer to me, allowing me to pull her into my chest and it feels so goddamn good that tears prick the backs of my eyes.
“I know it’s hard to be vulnerable, babe,” I say softly and run my fingers through her hair. “But this is a good thing.”
“No, it’s not,” she argues, her voice trembling. “I want to be independent. I can’t let you be my world, Luke.”
“Why not?”
“Because it will hurt too much if we don’t work.”
“It’s going to hurt no matter what at this point, just look at us now,” I argue, my teary eyes finding hers in the darkness. “We’re better together. You’re in this with me and it’s going to hurt if you lose me now or if you lose me fifty years from now when we’re old and gray and sitting on my front porch looking at our grandkids and marveling over the life we made. And if it’s all the same to you, I’d like option two.”
She sobs into my shoulder, and I tense, wondering if I’ve pushed her too far. But then again, not pushing her is how I got to where we are in the first place. I can’t hold back anymore. I want her to know what I see for us.I see everything for us.
“The truth is, Addison, I love you so much I would have just been your friend through all of this if that’s truly all you ever wanted from me. But the past couple weeks have proven we are more. We can be everything to each other if you just allow yourself to love me back.”
She shakes her head against my chest. “I don’t think I can ever trust you again. You lied to me, Luke. Just like my mom lied to my dad about being sober.”
My chest feels like it’s caving in. “That is so fucking different, Roe.”
“I don’t think it is. A lie is a lie.”
Silence grows between us as I bite my lip and struggle with what to say next. How could I have got this all so wrong? How could I let myself get so deep I can’t dig myself out?
Hell. I’m in fucking hell.
I’m holding the woman of my dreams in my arms, and I can feel her slipping through my fingers.
“I just think we go back to being friends,” she says quietly against my chest. “I can move back to my place in Boulder, and we just go back to being what we were before. Can you handle that?”
I close my eyes in the darkness, wishing I could figure out a way to have this mattress swallow me whole. This. This is why I never told her how I felt. I know my friend. I know her all too well. And now my greatest fear is coming true.
She’s pushing me away.
I press my lips into her hair, inhaling her scent one last time because I don’t know when I’ll ever get to hold her like this again. The ache in my chest is so intense, I struggle through my reply that rips my very soul to shreds, “I’d rather have you as a friend than nothing at all.”
She nods against me, breathing out one long sigh of relief that feels as if it’s sucked all the oxygen from my lungs. “Tomorrow, I think we should go through the motions of the wedding. Your mom worked so hard on all of this, and I don’t want to break her heart yet. We can work out our divorce plan later.”
My jaw aches at the finality in her words as I close my eyes and fight back my tears. “Whatever you say, Roe.”
Chapter 42
Fact or Fiction?
No one is a mastermind.
Luke
I’m on autopilot the next day, going through the motions of getting everything ready. Taking orders from Everly and my mom. Managing my brothers with their sympathetic looks and my crazy nephew, Ethan, who keeps asking how long until the wedding starts.
It’s my wedding day but, somehow, I feel like I’m preparing for a funeral.
When I woke up this morning, the bed was empty, and Addison’s car was gone. I wondered if she was going to leave me hanging at the altar, but when I checked my phone, I saw a text from her letting me know she was going for a run.
I stare at the wedding band I bought for her today, wondering if she’s going to give it back to me when this is all done and hating that idea. I’d rather she keep it. Even if we are over. I want her to want to keep it. I want her to keep at least a piece of these last couple of months we had together, even if they didn’t mean to her what they meant to me.
