CHAPTER SEVENTEEN FALLON
C HAPTER S EVENTEEN
FALLON
“I’m exhausted,” I say as I shut my bedroom door behind me.
“Me too,” Peter replies as he corrals me against the door, his eyes heady as he slips his hand up my hip, to the hem of my shirt. He leans forward and presses a kiss to my neck. “I’ve missed you, sweetheart.”
“Peter, I don’t—”
“Didn’t you miss me?” he asks, his mouth moving down my neck while his hand slowly moves up my shirt.
“I did,” I say, and I grip his wandering hand and stop him. “But not right now.”
He pulls away so our gazes connect. “Don’t want to be with your boyfriend?” he asks, a stark anger behind his usually gentle eyes. “Why? Because Sawyer is in the other room?”
My brow creases from his assumption. “No, because I have my period, Peter.” I push away from him and head to my side of the bed.
I feel his regret from across the room. “Shit, Fallon. I’m sorry.”
That’s the thing about Peter: he’s always quick to apologize. I almost wish he would drag it out a bit, take a second to truly feel the meaning behind his apology.
“Are you sorry?” I ask him as I flip the covers to the bed down. “Or are you just saying that out of instinct?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve been parading around ever since you’ve gotten here”—I fling my arm out to the side—“acting like some kind of possessive... man, staking claim wherever I walked.”
“Do you blame me?” he asks, his arms mimicking mine. “When I was driving up here, I was expecting to surprise my loving girlfriend, but instead, I find you with some other man.”
“Oh my God, you say that as if I was cheating, like you caught us in bed.” I remove the clip from my hair that’s holding it into a loose bun and toss it on my nightstand. “We were just talking. He’s been helping me with the renovations—I’m not going to act like a jerk to him.”
“Well, you don’t have to flirt with him.”
“What? Are you insane? I’m not flirting with him.”
“I’m not a moron, Fallon. I can see the way he looks at you. He likes you. And maybe you like the attention.”
What an awfully bold statement.
Anger sears through me, and I attempt to keep my voice low so Sawyer can’t hear anything. “He does not like me, and to assume that I enjoy another man’s attention is insulting, Peter.”
“He’s infatuated with you,” Peter says, stepping closer. “Trust me, I know when a man is interested, and he one hundred percent wants you.”
“He doesn’t,” I say. “I know him better than you, and no, he does not see me like that. If anything, there’s just friendship between us.
He’s a lost man, lonely, and looking for something other than the superficial life he was living.
Plus, he was cheated on—do you really think he would do that to someone else?
” And yes, we might have said there was attraction between us, but we both agreed to set it aside.
That’s nothing to even bring up, though, because Peter would lose his mind over it.
“Yes,” Peter says without even thinking about it. “Yes, I do. Men don’t have morals when it comes to something they want.”
“He doesn’t want me,” I shout-whisper.
“But do you want him?” Peter asks.
I open my mouth to respond—and for some reason, the words are caught in my throat. My answer sticks to my tongue like a chewy taffy, unmoving, unwavering. It feels like minutes, but my pause is mere seconds before I say, “No, of course not.”
But that pause, the second I take to gather myself, is all Peter needs to take a step backward, stunned. “You do,” he says, as if he’s stumbling upon this realization. “You want him.”
“Peter, stop, I don’t want him,” I say. “I want you.” I take a step toward him, but he backs up. “We’re both tired. I think emotions are high right now; we should just—”
“Tell me you love me.”
“What?” I freeze midstep.
“I love you, Fallon. You know that. But I can’t sit by and wait for you to try to figure out if you love me back. We’ve been together for over a year—you either do or you don’t.”
I glance away. I can’t seem to look him in the eyes. Not when I know the answer to his question.
He wants me to love him, and I’ve tried. I’ve tried so hard to dive deep into my feelings, to pull those emotions from the depth of my being, but anytime he utters those three little words, all I can think is... I don’t.
“It’s not that easy, Peter.”
“Yes, it is,” he says, walking up to me. He grips my cheek and forces me to look him in the eyes. “Tell me, right here, right now, how you feel about me.”
“Peter, this... this isn’t fair. You can’t pressure me like this.”
“Pressure you?” He laughs. “Fallon, I’ve been more than patient with you. I’ve driven up here almost every weekend to be with you. I’ve waited, I’ve put aside my needs, my wants, for you. I think it’s fair for me to ask you if you love me or not.”
“I never asked you to put aside anything for me.”
“And that’s what you don’t get—because I love you, I do anything you want.
Anything at all to make sure you’re happy.
” I glance away because this is all too raw, all too much.
The guilt consumes me, since I know he would.
I know he’d do just about anything for me, and still, I can’t muster up the type of love he wants me to.
A sarcastic laugh pops out of his mouth as I take the coward’s way out and glance away from him.
“But that’s not enough, is it?” He releases me and steps back.
“My love, my promise to keep you happy. That’s not enough for you.
” Turning away, he grips the top of his head and blows out a heavy breath.
“Jesus Christ, have I been wasting my time?”
“What? No.” I move toward him and touch his back, but he pulls away from my hand. A stark chill rushes through me. His denial cuts deep, deeper than I expected.
“How can I believe that?” He spins around. “How can I not think that I just wasted the better part of a year pining after someone who doesn’t feel the same way toward me?”
His words knock me back on my heels. Wasting his time?
I fold my arms over my chest. “You truly believe you’ve wasted your time with me? Do you realize how insulting that is?”
“Do you realize how insulting it is that you can’t mutter three little words to me?” he shoots back. “It’s not that hard, Fallon.”
“It is for me,” I say. “We got together right before I moved up here. And yes, have you been amazing, driving up here and making our relationship work? Of course, but you need to realize something, Peter: I’m not the same person you met a year ago.
And the fact that you can’t see that tells me you don’t know me at all.
That maybe you’re in love with the girl I used to be—not the girl I am right now. ”
“What do you mean you’ve changed?”
“The fact that you can’t even see that speaks volumes.”
“I’m not a mind reader, Fallon. I barely see you—how on earth can I tell if you’ve changed or not when we barely get a few days together? Maybe one phone call a week with texts sprinkled throughout. I’m trying here, I really am, but you have to meet me halfway.”
I feel my anger deflating in the face of his reason. Maybe he’s right: maybe I do need to meet him halfway. Our communication isn’t nearly as great as it should be for two people who’ve been together for over a year, and I know I have to take a great deal of responsibility for that.
“This is hard,” I say. “Harder than I think I ever believed it would be. Before I moved here, before I found out about Sully, my life was so simple. Yes, I worked in the ER, but that was challenging, that kept my mind sharp. I spent my days off reading poolside, soaking in the Palm Springs sun, having game night with my dads and friends. Hell, I’d even enjoy a nice glass of wine and just relax.
I don’t have that privilege anymore. I’m bound to my grandfather, to these cabins.
I don’t know what a day off is anymore, but I don’t care about that because my priorities are different.
I know you mean well, but you keep wanting to take me away from here; you keep wanting to help me forget.
But I don’t want to,” I say, my voice getting choked up with the real, deep truth pouring from my mouth.
“I don’t want to forget why I’m here, why I made the choice to help my ailing grandfather.
This is a part of me now, a part of my soul, and even though you’re patient with him, I know that you resent him as well—I can see it in your eyes.
” As I’m speaking, realization sets in as to why I’ve had a roadblock to loving this man.
Why I can’t say those three words. “How can I possibly love a man who resents the one person who makes me feel whole? Who makes me feel like I have purpose?”
Peter’s lips twist to the side, and when his eyes drift past my shoulder, I know I’m right.
“I don’t blame you, Peter. You met me when things were different, when I had all the time in the world to devote my energy to you.
But I’m not that same person, and I don’t want to be that same person.
I want a partner in this life, here in Canoodle, not someone trying to pull me away from it.
Not someone who is just counting down the days until Sully has no other choice but to be put into an assisted living facility.
” I motion toward the room. “This is my home. This is where I’m staying.
These cabins, they’re his legacy, and I’ll be damned if I let anything happen to them.
I know you think that maybe, one day, I’ll come back to Palm Springs, and perhaps I thought that you’d come up here one day, but I both think we know that’s not true. ”
He rubs his hand over his mouth, tension pulsing through his shoulders, wrapping all the way through his forearms.
“This isn’t about Sawyer, Peter. This is about us.”