Chapter 33
Colin
THE WORDS ALMOST came. I love you. The way she’d been today at work, so confident and in charge – not that she hadn’t been before.
But there was something in how she’d commanded an entire team of rugby players and brought them into submission, guiding them through an hour of what was almost certainly considered torture on their part.
The way she’d not taken an ounce of shit from any of them.
It’d reminded me of the Sam in Las Vegas. The Sam who dressed me down at the picnic and again in my office. Fiery. Stubborn.
Beautiful.
So I’d asked her to come over. And she countered with saying I could come here instead. I understood the test. Because it was absolutely a test.
So I came. And seeing her when she opened the door, seeing the surprise that flashed across her face, the disbelief followed by joy? I felt like a goddamn superhero.
The way she looked at me just now, as we made love, it nearly undid me. And now, as she smiles up at me, everything in her open and trusting, I nearly say it.
I love you.
Loving her is terrifying. It’s jumping out of a plane with no parachute. It’s swimming with sharks. It’s fifteen coin flips that all land on heads.
But I can’t. Because it turns out that when push comes to shove, I’m a coward.
All the evidence is right there: I ran in Vegas, and I’m running here.
I don’t deserve her. A woman like Sam deserves a man who stands up and tells the whole world he’s in love with her.
Not a scared man like me. Loving her feels like a promise I can’t keep.
I’ll inevitably break her heart, and I can’t do that to her.
I hold her until she falls asleep. When her breaths even out, I slip out of bed and leave her all over again.