13. Brody
Something was off with Skye.
I’d called the snowplow and confirmed they’d be coming through early in the afternoon, then arranged for a tow truck to collect Skye’s car. After that, as much as I’d been up for taking Skye straight back to bed, I’d seen the tension in the line of her spine and the set of her shoulders. It had been an intense couple of days, and maybe we were moving a little fast for her.
So I tried to act like I normally would if it were just Skye and me hanging out. Even though every part of me cried out to touch her and kiss her and hold her.
By the time the plow finally cleared the drive to my cabin, the muscles in my back were in knots. With every one of her smiles and fake lighthearted laughs, those knots tightened.
But I refused to acknowledge it. Even as we drove back to town together, Skye gazing quietly out the window, I didn’t ask what was wrong.
The truth was, I didn’t want to hear it.
So when she turned to me and cleared her throat, I knew enough to brace myself.
“You got a message this morning while you were in the shower.”
“Right,” I said, my mind flashing back to the message I’d gotten from Katie. Was that what this was about?
“I checked it in case it was your job or your parents.”
“I have no problem with you looking at my phone, Skye, you know that. Is this about the message from Katie? Because I can—”
“No, it’s not. Well, sort of.” A breath trembled out of her. “You don’t need to explain that to me. Whatever happened between you and Katie the other night—”
This time it was my turn to cut her off. “Nothing happened, Skye. We talked. After you left, she came up to me, and we talked. About you. And this guy at her work she’s been hung up on for a while. She gave me her number and told me if I ever wanted to talk again, she could be a friend.”
I met her gaze, hoping to see belief there. Her brow was furrowed, but she didn’t look upset. She believed me. It was that, or she didn’t believe but didn’t care enough to be angry about it. I hoped it was the first one.
“Thank you for telling me that, but you didn’t have to. You don’t owe me—”
I jerked the steering wheel to the side, making her gasp as I pulled the car off the road. Her eyes were wide as she stared at me.
“Stop saying that. This is not about whether I owe you anything. Or whether you should blindly trust me because you know I’d never do anything to hurt you. This is about us being open and honest with each other, just like we always have been. Before we slept together, you wouldn’t have thought twice about asking me what that message was about. This doesn’t have to change things between us, Skye. This is still us, but more. Better.”
Her throat bobbed in a swallow, and her eyes glossed over. But she blinked it away.
“What if it isn’t?” she whispered.
“Why wouldn’t it be? We’ve been best friends for years. You’re my favorite person. This just means I can be with my favorite person all the time. And I get to have mind-blowing sex with her.” I grinned.
Her lips twitched, but anxiety still shone in her eyes. “I want to believe that. I do. But Brody. What if it doesn’t work out that way? I was jealous when I read that message. I felt sick at the thought of you being with her that night, even though we weren’t together. Things have already changed for me. After only a couple of days. It would be so easy for things to go wrong. Next thing you know, we’re arguing, needing space from each other, complaining about each other to our friends. If I date some random, fall in love, and then lose him, I’ll still have you. But if I date you, then lose you, you’re gone forever. I won’t have you anymore.”
My heart was pounding in my chest. “So what exactly are you saying?”
“That I don’t think we should do this. I think we should just treasure the memory of these last few days and go back to being friends.”
“No.”
Her eyes widened. “No?”
“I can’t just put what happened between us aside, Skye. I get that you’ve suffered a lot of loss and you’re scared to risk losing more. But being with you is what I want. It’s been what I’ve wanted for a long time. I can’t be around you now and not think about what more we could have. And watching you date other men…” I shook my head. “I told you there was no going back. And I meant it.”
“So you’re saying we’re either together, or we’re not friends anymore?”
I released a harsh breath. “I’m just telling you how I feel. You can’t expect me to stand by and watch you fall in love with someone else when I’m in love with you.”
“I didn’t ask for this.” Her voice shook. “I didn’t ask for you to be in love with me.”
I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white. “I didn’t ask for it, either. But here we are. So why don’t you take a chance on us? We’ve been friends all this time. And I think we’ve proven we’re more than compatible. There’s no reason we can’t make this work.”
She turned away and stared out the windshield, her chin jutted forward. Skye was nothing if not stubborn. Continuing this argument wouldn’t get me anywhere.
I put the car in gear and pulled back out onto the road. The rest of the drive passed in silence. With every mile we traveled back toward town, my heart grew heavier. Had I made a terrible mistake? Maybe I should have taken my feelings for Skye to the grave. Tried harder to find a nice woman to fall for who wasn’t my best friend.
But even now that everything I’d hoped for was drifting away from me, I couldn’t imagine that happening. And I didn’t know how we’d go back to the way things were. We were in a no-win situation. Unless Skye decided we were worth the risk, this might be the end of us.
We pulled up outside Skye’s house a short while later. Her car was in the driveway. The tow truck had delivered it to her house like I’d asked.
We sat there in silence until I couldn’t take it anymore. “Maybe we should take a few days.”
I heard rather than saw her turn to me since I’d fixed my gaze on the wintery landscape outside the car. If I hoped she’d argue with me, tell me no, she didn’t want to take a few days, that we needed to work this out now, I was disappointed.
“Okay.” The word came out wobbly, and I was tempted to reach for her. To pull her to me and hug her the way I had so often in the past. But I didn’t. Because she was right. Everything had changed now, and there was no going back. For either of us. I’d insisted on making this bed, and now we both had to lie in it.
I didn’t look at her as she climbed out of the car. I wasn’t a crier. The last time I’d shed a tear was at Skye’s mom’s funeral. But the tightness in my throat as the door swung shut behind her told me that in my heart, I knew I’d lost her before I’d ever really had her.