21
I’m back for you, Hadley.
Great. One more emphatic statement I can add to my growing list of Things Sam’s Said To Rock My World and Keep Me Up At Night.
I tip my head back and glare up at the Fates, who, it seems, have nothing better to do this morning than ruin my life.
Sam follows my gaze.
Probably wondering when I lost my mind.
Which would either be the moment I saw him walking toward me two days ago or the day at his pool when I threw caution to the wind and became his friend.
Sam being the common denominator in both situations.
He’s why the whole point of this conversation has gotten away from me. I’m supposed to let him go, not have my feelings twisted and tangled like ropes, tying me even tighter to him.
And I’m definitely not supposed to have any hope that somehow, someway Sam and I can finally work things out.
That we can be together.
I push past him and pace the length of the room. Once. Twice. Stopping, I whirl around to point at him. “Don’t say things like that to me.”
“Why not?”
Because it only confuses me when I’ve spent so much time trying to get over him.
Because it makes me want things I can never have.
“Because it’s too late.” From the living room, the soundtrack to our little drama is Taylor singing along to the Toodles song. “You said so yourself. On Christmas. Remember?”
He blanches, as if thinking about what he said to me, how he treated me Christmas night makes him want to throw up.
That makes two of us.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” He moves toward me and I take a quick step back. No way can I let him get close to me again. He stops. “And I shouldn’t have stayed at my dad’s. I should have come back. I should have fought for you.”
I shake my head, denying his words. Denying the way they make me feel because there’s that dumb hope again, floating around inside of me, trying to burst free. “But you did. You said it. And you left. You can’t take it back.”
Just like I can’t take back the choices I made.
No matter how much I want to.
“You’re right,” he agrees so readily, I’m immediately suspicious because, as nice a guy as Sam is, he’s still a guy.
And he hates being wrong.
I eye him warily. “I am?”
He nods.
I sense a trap and yet I keep right on going, barreling ahead without thought or care about the snare that’s ahead.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “If I’m right, then what’s all this about?”
All this crazy talk about coming back for me. About fighting for me.
“I can’t take it back,” he says, holding his hands out to his sides as if to show he’s harmless. He’s not. He proves that by once more closing the distance between us in his slow, confident way. “But I can move forward.”
He’s doing that, all right. Literally. And with each step he takes, I take one back.
Until the edge of the counter digs into my spine.
“I want to move forward,” he continues, stopping a foot away. He sets his hands on the counter on either side of my waist, leans down so that we’re eye to eye. “With you.”
Once more this morning I’m trapped by a guy, my stomach twisting with nerves, my heart racing. But unlike what happened with greasy, inked Axel, these nerves aren’t from fear, but anticipation. The fluttering in my chest from excitement.
“We’re not going to be friends again,” I tell him and, unbelievably, my voice is steady. Firm. Like that of a woman who says what she means and means what she says.
And how does Sam respond to my unequivocal statement?
He grins. Like I’m the funniest thing ever.
“No,” he says, an undercurrent of laughter in his soft tone, “we’re not going to be friends again.”
His words from yesterday come back to me, how he said he didn’t want to be my friend. Or, more specifically, that he didn’t want to be just friends.
I open my mouth but he rushes on. “Don’t tell me it’s too late. And don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way about me that I feel about you, because I know you do.”
I cross my arms—not an easy feat when he’s so close, but it allows me to stick my elbows out, making sure he doesn’t get any closer. “Wow. Someone’s ego grew nice and big out there in the California sun.”
“Don’t say no,” he continues as if I haven’t spoken. “Give us a chance.”
I mean to tell him, clearly, concisely and calmly, that there is no us. The days of Sam and Hadley, Hadley and Sam are long gone. And that chance he wants has passed by. Instead, when I speak, my voice is thin.
Unsure.
“I can’t.”
Sam, of course, notices my hesitation. “You can.”
I don’t have his confidence. His courage. Or his belief that things will work out. Don’t have the strength to lose him again.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, unable to look at him.
His arms next to me stiffen and he slowly lets go of the counter and straightens. I stare at his knees, peeking out from underneath the hem of his shorts, waiting for him to storm out.
He steps back. This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for since Sam and I first became friends. The moment when he realizes I’m not worth it—not worth his time, energy or feelings.
The moment he gives up on me for good.
My lower lip trembles and I bite down on it. Hard.
I’d been prepared to let him go. That’d been the plan, right? To let him have his say as some sort of closure between us. I’d even thought it would somehow be easy, what with everything that’s happened between us. That it would be painless.
It’s not. Not easy. Far from painless.
And, it seems, the whole process is going to be dragged out way longer than necessary because Sam hasn’t moved. I can feel him watching me, his gaze on the top of my head. Why doesn’t he get on with the walking-out part, already? The least he can do is make this quick. God.
But nobody can make Sam Constable do something he doesn’t want to do. And that includes leaving after his welcome has run out.
“There’s one more thing,” he murmurs, his breath ruffling the hair at the top of my head. “One more thing I need to tell you.”
“Remember our discussion last night? The one about how it’s not fair for you to always get what you want?”
“I’m tired of being fair and always doing the right thing. I’m still in love with you, Hadley, and I’m tired of pretending I’m not.”
My head whips up so fast, my neck cracks. Eyes wide, I stare at him, fingers touching my throat, silently begging him not to say any more.
Secretly hoping he does.
Sam loves me. He still loves me.
In all my wildest fantasies, I never, not once, dreamed this could happen. That not only would Sam return to town for good, but that he could still have those feelings for me. But he does.
How am I supposed to resist him?
Am I an idiot for even trying?
“I…I don’t know what to say,” I admit.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he assures me quickly. “I’m not asking you to tell me you love me, too, or to make me any promises about…well…anything.”