I squeezed my eyes shut, breathing him in, feeling his breath on my face. I wanted to hold this moment in suspended animation. These tender stolen seconds. My forehead pressed to his, his warm hand over mine, his heart beating against my palm. Him slowly turning me on a dance floor, telling me I’m beautiful.
His deep voice spoke over me softly. “Can I ask you a question?”
“What?” I whispered, opening my eyes.
“What does Sloan think of him?”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Sloan hates him.”
“Why?”
“Because she thinks I’ve settled.”
He furrowed his brow. “Settled? How? Is something wrong with him? Is he a dick?”
I let out a long breath. “No. He doesn’t want kids.”
He scoffed. “Well, there you go. The kid thing is too important. Can’t be with him.”
It felt like a punch right to my uterus. A hard lump bolted to my throat, and I had to look away from him because I was going to cry.
There it was, straight from his own lips.
The kid thing is too important. Can’t be with him.
He stopped turning us, and he put my face in his hands. Once I was looking at him again, I lost it. My chin quivered and tears spilled over my cheeks.
His eyes moved back and forth between mine. “Don’t marry him, Kristen.”
My heart cracked in half.
“Don’t marry him,” he whispered. “Please.”
There was something desperate about the way he said it. I studied the look in his eyes. Distress. Longing. Pleading.
This wasn’t the look of a man who just didn’t want to give up his booty call. This was feelings. Josh has feelings for me.
The realization hit me like a deep, cancerous, soul-reaching sadness. These emotions I could see he had for me—they should have made me happy. I should have been ecstatic to know that what I felt maybe wasn’t so one-sided. But instead, a bitter disappointment descended on my body making me so weak I worried my knees would give out.
I had to cut him loose.
This thing between us had gone as far as I could allow it to go.
I wasn’t going to marry Tyler. I think I’d known that the whole time. After I’d said no, he’d begged me to think about it. So I did. But I wasn’t going to be with either of them. I couldn’t.
The kid thing is too important. Can’t be with him.
I couldn’t love Tyler the way he deserved, and I couldn’t give Josh a family. I could never give either man what he really wanted.
Josh
Kristen told Tyler no to his proposal, and I hadn’t seen her in two fucking weeks.
Shawn, Brandon, and I stood on the Vegas strip in front of the Bellagio fountains, waiting for the water show to start. It was Brandon’s bachelor party weekend. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. I was losing my fucking mind. I needed to see her.
I checked my phone again. Nothing.
Shawn saw me check my cell. “Man, she’s not thinking about your ass. Fuck, you’re sprung.”
Brandon took a drink from his water bottle. “They’re going into massages. Sloan just texted me.”
Sloan was having her bachelorette party today back in California. I hated that I needed to hear about Kristen’s day in the third person. I fucking hated it.
The morning after karaoke night, our crew had been sent as an emergency strike team to Sequoia National Park to fight a wildfire. We’d been there for twelve days, and Kristen only called me once the whole time I was gone. She wouldn’t answer my calls or texts. She’d gone completely cold on me.
We’d gotten home just in time to leave for Vegas. I didn’t have time to go to her house.
I rolled up my sleeves. It was 2:00 in the afternoon and the sidewalk radiated heat. Sweaty tourists streamed past us. Sunburned spring breakers drinking out of souvenir cups, a cluster of young women laughing as they passed, huddled around a friend in a white veil, two middle-aged women wearing backpacks and cameras.
Couples holding hands.
Shawn lit a cigar. “She’s probably fucking somebody this weekend, bro. You should hook up too.”
“Shut the fuck up, dick.” I plucked at the front of my shirt, wondering offhand if Shawn was right, and getting irritable just thinking about it.
Brandon waved off a guy in sunglasses handing out flyers for a strip club. “No change at all with her, huh?”
I shook my head. “She’s been off ever since karaoke night.”
It was like an enormous tower had come up around her with a drawbridge, a moat full of piranhas, and machine guns on top. Compliments of Tyler, no doubt. I fucking hated that guy. I mean, I hadn’t really been making progress with her before he showed up, but at least she spoke to me back then.
One minute she was sitting in my lap in an Uber and dancing with me, telling me she’d liked me, and the next I couldn’t even get a text back.
I’d played that last night over and over again in my mind, trying to figure out what went wrong.