I’m feeling the moment out.
New experiences don’t send me hitch-hiking backwards. I’m not as free as the wind as Banks, but I try to kick myself out of my comfort zone. If I stayed in there, I’d never do half the things I’ve done.
Give and take punches and kicks for Muay Thai. Bungee jumping with my dad at fourteen. Open a gym at eighteen. Snowboard black diamonds. Swim with sharks with the Meadows family.
Chase after Sulli.
Some piece of me wishes I could be a cocky asshole and say, she loves me more than him. I have this in the bag.
But I don’t think I do. In order for me not to go out of my mind, I try to stop looking at this like a competition.
I just want to have this time with her.
At the small-town mountain store, Sulli breathes easier with my reassurance. She rifles through a bowl of Montana stickers. She’s one hundred percent looking for a gift for Winona.
I spin a rack of postcards next to Sulli, then take one out and flick it on her nose.
She tries hard not to match my smile. “You don’t want to start a nose-flicking competition with me. I’ll beat your ass, and then you’ll pout.”
“But I thought you loved winning against me?” I flick her nose again.
She steals the postcard. “Yeah, because you’re the biggest sore loser I know. Victory is that much sweeter when you whine—”
“I don’t whine,” I scoff with a smile.
“You whine.” She grins.
I glance at her lips more than once.
She bites the bottom one. “Fuck.” She turns her head away from me.
My pulse skips. “What’s wrong, Sul?” I tilt my head.
Sulli peeks up at me through her long brown hair. “Sometimes I think I was dreaming it—you and me together—and then you look at me like that, and I remember it’s real.” She inhales a bigger breath. “It’s pretty fucking overwhelming, but you probably know what this feels like already.”
I’m confused. “What do you mean?”
“A friend-turned-lover.” She cringes at her sudden use of lover.
I smile, “You don’t want to be my lover?”
“Kits,” she groans. “You know what I mean.”
“Okay, lover.”
“Fuck off.” She snaps the postcard to my nose.
We both laugh.
I spin the postcard rack but look at her. “I’ve had friends who I ended up dating, but no friend has been like you. I’ve had vested interest in your wellbeing for so long, Sul. It’s just a different feeling. More…intense.”
Can’t live without her.
She spins the rack now. “Do you think it’d be easy for you to just go back to being friends with me?”
I tense.
Is she already breaking up with me?
And before I can respond, she says, “Because sometimes I feel like I’m waiting for you to change your mind at any time. Like you could just pull that switch and go back to how things were with us.”
My stomach plummets. I don’t want Sulli to feel like I could rip a rug out from under her. To press rewind. It devastates me even imagining myself doing that to her.
Am I capable of it?
Yeah.
To her?
No.
But I can’t blame her for feeling this way when I kept asserting how our friendship was just that. Friendship. Written in cement. Carved in marble. Etched in the center of the Earth.
“I’m not going to pull that switch,” I say from my core. “I promise you, Sulli. I don’t just want to be your friend.”
Her green eyes smile before her lips. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I nod. “And it’s not snowing, so this can’t be a dream.”
“Have you had one of those in a while?” she wonders, looking more concerned.
“Actually, no,” I admit. Now that I think about it, the last one was the night before the cougar attack.
Her brows rise, just as surprised as I am. She opens her mouth to reply, but Chuck returns with three shopping bags filled with containers of live crickets. They’re loud as shit. He shows us the self-checkout pad, then trots to the back.
Sulli refuses to let me pay. “It’s my idea.”
I still have my wallet out. “I can put this on my business card.”
“How does this relate to your security firm?”
“It relates to you,” I remind her.
“No,” she snaps. “I have money.” From her trust fund. And she contends, “You’d never put up a fight before.”
“That’s because you weren’t my girlfriend before.” The word girlfriend comes out, and I eat another bowl of Instant Regret. Because I feel bad for Banks.
What is this guilt?
I wish I didn’t care that much about his feelings in all of this, but I can’t shut it off.
Sulli looks thunderstruck.
“I meant date,” I correct. “I’m dating you, and I wouldn’t let a date pay.”
“Is this a date?” she starts to smile.
“A casual one,” I nod. Definitely not what I’d do on a normal date. Buy crickets for revenge. But Sullivan Meadows is an American princess, so I never thought this would be normal.
She smiles. “Alright.” But she swipes her debit card in the pad. “I’m paying for my date this time around.”
“Fine,” I sigh with a smile, then slip the card into my wallet. Before we leave, the two of us linger near a rack of canoes on the far wall. She must want extra time with me too. My chest rises, and we both set down our shopping bags.
Sulli pretends to inspect the three-person canoe. Mostly, she keeps glancing back at me.
I ask, “What’s on your mind?”
Her fingers skim down the canoe’s vibrant green exterior. “I just hope you know that I’m supportive of you and your businesses. I don’t want to hold you back, and I don’t blame you for bailing.”
It’s hard to inhale. “Is that what you think? That I’m bailing on you?”
She brushes her hair out of her face. “No…I don’t know. I guess in a sense you technically are, but it’s understandable. And I understand you want more than just to be my full-time bodyguard.”
I don’t want more than that.
But I do.
I hate that I do.
I’ve wanted it for my dad. For myself. Since I was eighteen and I started my own gym, I’ve wanted it all. And it’s been hard. I’ve met setbacks and roadblocks and now creating a new company has its own challenges. But no challenge is harder than saying goodbye to Sulli.
Connor Cobalt’s voice rings in my head: Be a full-time bodyguard or be a businessman. There’s a great chance you won’t be able to do both.
That time hasn’t come yet. I refuse to believe it has.
“I’m still your bodyguard,” I remind her. “Nothing’s changed.” Yet.
She nods, but she doesn’t look fully convinced. “To be fucking crystal, I want whatever brings you the most happiness. If that means leaving my detail for something else, I’ll understand.” She pauses. “I wouldn’t say it won’t hurt. Someone once told me that love hurts, so that’s probably why it wouldn’t be that easy.”