Chapter 10 #2
“Okay,” he said. “This is ridiculous. We’re acting like teenagers who got caught making out under the bleachers.”
“We did just make out in a car.”
“Which was incredible, by the way. Best car make-out session of my entire life, and I’ve had some notable ones.
” He set down the bag he was holding and stepped closer.
“Farley. I don’t want to pretend that didn’t happen.
I kissed you because I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment I saw you standing on your porch looking at me like I was an alien who’d crash-landed in your peaceful existence. ”
“That is roughly what I was thinking.”
“I know.” He smiled, and God, when he smiled like that—open and real, no trace of Dr. Brock Blaze’s practiced charm—it made my chest ache.
“And I know this is complicated. I know you just got out of something, and I know I’m in the middle of a career crisis, and I know we’re both here temporarily and there’s a blizzard coming and there’s a cat that keeps leaving us dead animals like some kind of fuzzy serial killer—”
“Samuel.”
He stopped. Looked at me with those sensual eyes, the ones that had been haunting my thoughts since the day he’d shown up at my door unable to light his own fire.
I should kiss him again. That was what every cell in my body was screaming at me to do. Close the distance, taste him again, let whatever was building between us catch fire and burn.
But my heart was still healing from wounds I hadn’t fully acknowledged. And somewhere, under all the attraction and the chemistry and the undeniable want, there was fear.
Fear that I was too broken for this, that I’d give myself to someone again, only to watch them choose someone else. Fear that Samuel—charming, gorgeous, famous Samuel—would eventually look at me and find me lacking, the way Ollie had.
“I should go,” I said.
Samuel’s expression crumpled. Not dramatically—he was too good an actor for that. But I saw the hope drain out of his eyes, replaced by something that looked painfully like resignation.
“Right,” he said. “Sure. You probably have... things. To do. For the blizzard.”
“Samuel—”
“No, it’s fine. Really.” He was rallying, putting on that bright, professional smile that he probably used at press junkets and fan conventions. The one that didn’t reach his eyes. “Thank you for the ride to Charlottesville. And for dealing with the mice. That was very—”
I stepped forward and caught his hand. His skin was warm against my cold fingers, and I felt him startle at the contact.
“It’s not that I don’t want this,” I said, and my voice came out rougher than I intended. “I need you to know that. I want—” I broke off, struggling to find words for something I barely understood myself. “Sam, I want you in a way I haven’t wanted anyone in a very long time.”
“Then why—”
“Because I’m not ready.” The words felt like broken glass in my throat.
“I thought I was. I thought coming here, getting away from everything, would be enough. But I’m still—” I gestured vaguely at myself, at the mess I was barely holding together.
“I’m still so angry at Ollie. At Roger. At myself for not seeing it coming.
And I don’t want to bring that into something new.
I don’t want to poison whatever this is before it even has a chance to grow. ”
Samuel was quiet for a long moment. His hand was still in mine, neither of us pulling away.
“So what are you saying?” he asked finally. “That we should just... pretend that kiss never happened?”
I felt the burn of tears behind my eyes and hated myself for it. “I’m saying I want to be your friend right now, because I think I need a friend more than I need anything else. And I’m saying I’m terrified of ruining this by rushing into something before I’m ready.”
“Friends.” Samuel said the word like he was tasting something unfamiliar. Something that wasn’t quite what he’d ordered.
“Friends who kissed once in a driveway and then discovered a cat’s murder victims. It’s a very specific category.”
He didn’t laugh.
“Farley.” He reached up with his free hand and cupped my face, his thumb brushing along my cheekbone.
“I spent the entire drive back from Charlottesville thinking about all the ways I wanted to touch you. I sat in that parking lot while you bought eggnog ingredients and planned how I was going to seduce you tonight. And I kissed you in this driveway because I couldn’t stand waiting one more second. ”
My breath caught. “Samuel—”
“And now you’re asking me to be your friend.” His voice cracked slightly on the word. “Which is—it’s fine. It’s fine. I’m a grown man. I can handle rejection.”
“It’s not rejection.”
“It feels like rejection.”
“I know it does. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I’m not in a place where I can give you what we both want.
But I can’t—” My voice broke. “I can’t open myself up and find out later that I wasn’t enough.
And right now, I don’t trust myself to know the difference between genuine feelings and rebound desperation. ”
Samuel’s expression softened. He wiped the tears from my cheeks with his thumb.
“Okay,” he whispered.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” He let out a long breath, and I watched him consciously set aside whatever he was feeling—the disappointment, the want, the frustration of being told not yet when he wanted right now. “Friends. I can do friends.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead—chaste, careful, nothing like the fire we’d shared earlier.
“You’re worth waiting for, Farley Davenport.
Even if you don’t believe that yet.” Samuel pulled me into a hug—a proper one, arms wrapped tight around my waist. We stood there in his kitchen doorway, surrounded by groceries and the lingering awareness of the kiss we’d shared and the specter of the mice I’d disposed of, and I let myself be held.
“Thank you,” I whispered against his shoulder.
“For what?”
“For understanding.”
“I don’t think I do understand, entirely. But I’m trying.” He pulled back enough to look at me, and his smile was sad but real. “Go home. Prepare for the blizzard. I’ll see you...”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.” He nodded. “Assuming we’re not buried under eight feet of snow.”
I managed a watery laugh. “If we are, at least we’ll be neighbors in the apocalypse.”
“There’s no one I’d rather freeze to death next to.”
It shouldn’t have been romantic. It wasn’t romantic. But something about the way he said it—the sincerity underneath the joke—made my chest tighten all over again.
I stepped back. Took a breath. Remembered how to be a functional human being instead of an emotional disaster in cashmere.
“Goodnight, Samuel.”
“Goodnight, Farley.”
I walked back to the Range Rover. Climbed inside.
Started the engine. Because sometimes the right thing to do and the thing you want to do aren’t the same.
And sometimes you have to choose healing over happiness, even when happiness is standing right in front of you with sad eyes and a smile that makes you forget how to breathe.
The last thing I saw in my rearview mirror was Samuel turning away, his shoulders slumped as he walked back into his cabin.
And then I was alone on the mountain road, driving toward my empty cabin, wondering if I’d just thrown away the best thing that had ever wandered uninvited into my life.
Purrsephone, I was fairly certain, would never forgive me for this.
I wasn’t sure I would forgive myself either.