Page 167 of Made Better Together

My heart lurches. “But you changed your mind?”

He studies my face. “Yeah. I—it’s not the right thing either.”

Thank God. “It isn’t. For either of us.”

He sits next to me on the bed. “In the past, all the conflict, the mess…I absolutely would have probably kept trying to lie my way out of it.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to be that person. Not with you.”

He inches his hand over, linking our pinkies. Like at the museum, only with so much more significance.

“You’re so important to me, Eden, and I never want to be someone who holds you back. But I can’t…imagine giving up what we have. I can be myself with you in a way I never thought possible, and it sounds like the reverse is true? It feels like…we make each other better.”

“We do. Happier. Freer,” I add.

“Yes.”

Pinkies still linked, affection streaming from his eyes, he leans down to kiss my forehead.

“So, instead, I do think we should take a pause.”

Panic shoots up my chest. “A pause?”

“Like you did with your medical school apps.”

Huh? “That pause could be years. What do you mean?”

He shakes his head vigorously. “Not years. I mean until you get back from California. After Christmas.”

I’m still confused. “What do you mean by a pause?”

“You have all your exams next week, and a couple of final papers due? Plus Aiden’s going to begin negotiating with teams, so you may have requests from them? Then you leave for California for ten days?”

I nod. Okay, yeah, it’s going to be a busy three weeks.

“I mean letting you focus on all of that. Still talk, still boyfriend and girlfriend, but…I’ll stay away.”

I don’t respond, only because I’m still digesting the idea.

“It’ll give time for everyone to cool down, too,” he adds. Everyone, like my dad. “It’s just…a bad time for a lot of heightened emotions. For you to have to deal with, I mean.”

His points are logical. A “pause” seems unorthodox, but well, when have Connor and I done the straightforward thing? With everything on my plate, what he’s describing would have its benefits. I doubt I could schedule much quality time with him during finals week, and my California flight is five hours after my last test.

Plus, absence makes the heart grow fonder?

“It’d be like a replay of your time in LA,” I observe.

“Except now, we’ll still be together in every way but one.” Physically.

I hum in agreement, and he plants a kiss on me so intensely in return, I fall backward on the bed.

I shuffle again through the reasoning behind his suggestion. If our secret hadn’t become an explosive issue, I probably would have dismissed it. But with the demands of the upcoming weeks, and the drama circulating the relationship? It might be good to narrow my focus, for this short period of time.

“I guess we can do a pause. I want to talk every day, though.”

“Of course.” His tone leaves no doubt.

“Then we go back to normal, once I’m back from California?”

“Our new normal—which means no more hiding.”