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I lifted my head off the pillow, craning my neck to look down at her. “We’re going to have to tell her sooner rather than later. I know that wasn’t the plan.”
“We were going to tell her after you left. When it was over.”
My chest hurt like someone had reached inside, grabbed hold of my heart, and squeezed it with all their might. She had never wanted something permanent. She had been crystal clear about that. And that wasbeforeshe knew I couldn’t have biological kids. Now? Well, now she had to realize I was a bad bargain. A month ago, I would have been okay with that. Casual had suited me just fine, until I found someone who either already had kids, didn’t want kids, or would be open to adoption.
But I wasn’t feeling so casual about things right now. I was feeling…really fucking uncasual, as a matter of fact.
I had no idea where her head was at when it came to us as a couple. The frown she was currently sporting made my insides a little shaky. But I had always been the kind who ripped a bandage off in one swift pull, rather than a slow drag where you could feel each individual body hair get trapped in the sticky tape. Get the pain over with and move on.
So I steeled my gut, gritted my teeth, and put it out there, ripping off the bandage with a quick pull. “I don’t want us to end.”
“I don’t either,” she said softly.
Thank god.
But I wasn’t naïve enough to call us good quite yet. She had only just found out I couldn’t have biological kids. I had told her to sit with it awhile, and I needed her to do that. For the sake of my heart and my sanity, I needed to know that whatever decision she came to, it was real and not just what she thought a good person would say. But there was no reason we couldn’t be together while she thought about it, right? We could keep dating while she figured things out.
I pushed her onto her back. She made a squeaking noise as I rolled on top of her. “Good.”
“But—”
“Dammit, no. No buts.”
“But I’m not great at this.” She twirled her fingers through my hair, pushing it back from my temple. “Actually, I’m really, really bad at this. I haven’t been anyone’s girlfriend since I was a teenager, but I was a terrible wife.”
Suddenly I realized I had no idea why she was divorced. Like anything personal, she had held it back. And now she was saying it was at least partly her fault—which, fair enough. Most divorces were a two-way street. “Tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell, really.” She watched her fingers play with my hair rather than look me in the eye. “I’m jealous and paranoid. Marriage seems to bring it out in me, or maybe a long-term relationship. Hard to say, since I’ve only had the one. But you saw what I was like the other day at Dreamer’s, when I saw you with Sofia.”
“That was nothing. It was fine. I told you that.”
“That was just the tip of the iceberg. When it happens again—and it will, because these things always happen—I’ll be even more upset. I’ll start to see patterns where there aren’t any, I’ll suspect you of doing things you aren’t doing, and it will get ugly.”
“Or maybe you’ll ask me what’s going on and I’ll tell you.”
She snorted. “Sure, if I were sane. But relationships make me crazy.”
I studied her for a moment. She looked perfectly sane to me, if a bit worried. “So you get a little jealous. That happened in one relationship. It doesn’t mean it will happen again. That was you and Grant. What we have is completely different. I’m not Grant.”
A frown puckered her forehead. “But I’m still me.”
“Tell you what.” I tried to sound easy, like this was no big deal, like someone wasn’t delivering blows to my heart with her tiny fists. “We’ll see where this goes. And if you do indeed turn into a jealous shrew, I’ll dump you and move on to the next one. Suzie has other friends, doesn’t she?”
“Hey!” Nora lifted a knee threateningly between my legs.
“Teasing.” I rolled us so now I was on my back and she was on top. I wrapped my arms around her waist and held on tight. “But seriously, kitten, what are our options? I’ll be back in Hart’s Ridge in February, and Suzie’s going to find out one way or the other. So we either pull the plug on this thing or we keep it going. What’s it going to be?”
She groaned, lowering her head against my shoulder with a thunk. “Great,” she mumbled. “I’ll just run headfirst into a broken heart. That’s fine. Everything is fine.”
A better man might have felt terrible at that, but I felt a surge of happiness. Not that I wanted to break her heart—I would rather stick my hand in a hive of murder hornets than cause Nora pain—but it made me ridiculously pleased to think Icould. That she cared enough for me that it would be hard to walk away.
Whatever. It had already been a long, weird day, and it was barely noon. I’d cut myself some slack.
“Nothing’s changing, not really,” I said reassuringly. “We keep doing what we’ve been doing, except we stop hiding it. That’s a good thing. Think of all the missed opportunities we’ve had, where we couldn’t talk or touch or kiss because we didn’t want Suzie to find out. And the other day, when you came by with lasagna? That was torture.”
Her gaze softened. “That’s true.”
“I could pay Suzie a visit this afternoon.”
