Chapter Sixteen
Sloane
Ashley remained chilly toward me but was friendly and engaging with everyone else the rest of the night. My friends knew something was up and glanced at me side-eyed more than once as if to accuse, What did you do!
I subtly shrugged my shoulders in silent answer.
Maddie and Grace’s matching pursed lips indicated they didn’t believe me.
I followed Ash when she went into the kitchen to slice the dessert she brought. When she opened the refrigerator, I boxed her in, so the door was blocking us from everyone else’s view, and lifted her chin so she had to look at me—something she’d been avoiding since she moved into the family room.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
She tried to look down when she replied, “Nothing.”
I really was at a loss and was grasping at straws what the problem could be.
“Do you want to go?”
“No. I like hanging out . I’ve been doing it for the last three days.”
Ding! Ding! Ding! Johnny, we have a winner!
I knew the second I had described our relationship like that, I had fucked up. I just hadn’t recognized the magnitude of my fuck up.
“Aw, dulzura , is that why you’re upset? Because I told Josh we’ve been hanging out?”
She lifted her shoulders like she didn’t care. “No, why should I be upset about that? That’s what we’ve been doing.”
I didn’t like hearing her downplaying our time together, like it didn’t mean anything, and suddenly understood why she was so pissed.
“We’ve been doing a lot more than hanging out, and you know it.”
She kept her eyes locked with mine when she raised one eyebrow and sassily asked, “Do I?”
I slid my arm around her waist and pulled her tight against me as I snarled, “Fucking A right, you do,” then captured her lips with mine in a punishing kiss.
For the first few seconds, she kept her spine and mouth rigid, and I was worried she wasn’t going to return the kiss. Then I felt her body relax as her arms wound around my neck, and she melted against me with a sigh.
Breaking the kiss, I leaned my forehead against hers.
“I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just didn’t want to talk out of turn. We haven’t defined what this is between us.”
She pulled back to look at me with narrowed eyes.
“You had no problem telling Sara I was your girlfriend...”
“She was being disrespectful to you and needed to be put in her place.”
“So, you can say it to someone to piss them off, but you don’t want to say it in front of your friends.”
That raised my hackles a little. I didn’t think she was being fair.
“What are you talking about? Maddie, Grace, Craig, Ryan, and Tammy were all there when I said it last night.”
“And they were all here today when you said I was your friend .”
Goddammit.
I didn’t have any defense for that.
Her bottom lip trembled, and her eyes grew watery. I hate that I’d hurt her feelings and maybe even embarrassed her. I would have given my left nut to go back in time and make it right.
But I was leaving Monday—Veteran’s Day, of all days, and who knew when I was going to be back. I couldn’t make it right—not yet, anyway.
“Sweetness…” I traced her cheekbone with my thumb. “I would love for you to be my girlfriend…”
“But?” she squeaked.
“But I can’t ask you to be that until I’m back for good. It’s not fair to you.”
“I already told you; I’ll wait.”
“What if I don’t come back, baby?”
She recoiled like I’d slapped her, bumping into a shelf in the refrigerator, and her eyes grew wide. The tears threatening to spill over.
“This next mission is going to be the most dangerous one I’ve ever been on, and that’s saying a lot.”
As my words sunk in, her anger at me dissipated into fear for me, and the tears flowed freely down her cheeks. I brushed them away with my thumbs, the feeling of helplessness to ease her pain and worry felt like a five-hundred-pound weight on my chest. The only thing I could think to do was hold her against me and let her cry.
While she sobbed quietly into my shirt, I remembered having witnessed this scene dozens of times every time my company shipped out. And how I had always been glad I wasn’t attached and didn’t have to put someone through that.
I never should have gotten involved with her. Not like this.
But even as the thought entered my mind, I couldn’t imagine not having had her in my life. I finally understood that stupid Tennyson poem I’d had to read in high school. “'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
I used to think it was bullshit.
Now I wasn’t so sure.