Chapter 23 #4
The way she rolls her eyes suggests she’d never be caught dead in anything else.
But even though I appreciate how she looks tonight, all dolled up in a strapless sundress and these gorgeous sandals, I prefer her completely natural—just out of the shower, makeup-free and hair wet, in her pajamas, settling into my couch for the evening.
I want her permanently back in my apartment.
“Don’t think that your legs are going to distract me from talking about this relationship.”
“You’re the one who started talking about my legs.” She bats those impossibly long eyelashes at me.
“I need to know what you’re thinking, Petra. Before you left, you said you didn’t want to go. But once you were gone, you cut me out of your life. What happened? And how do we make sure that doesn’t happen again when I leave tomorrow?”
I’m not dumb enough to think that just because things have been relatively normal while I’ve been here—that just because the sex has been amazing and the company has been easy, that just because we finally talked about our past—she won’t try to remove herself from my life again once I’m gone.
I think one of the keys to her success is her ability to hyperfocus on what’s in front of her, whatever challenge or opportunity that might be.
The by-product of that is pushing away everything else.
“I don’t know what to say, Aleksandr,” she says, and I try not to visibly cringe at the use of my full name.
She seems to be using it more than my nickname now.
“I am filming an entire season of a show in less than two months and also running a company from seven hundred miles away. Even though I’m not facing medically diagnosed exhaustion anymore, it’s still exhausting.
It’s two full-time jobs. I don’t have anything left to give.
” She leans back in her seat and crosses her arms. “The only reason we’re even having this dinner, the only reason we had a great day today, is because of a freak coincidence that you happened to be in town right as my schedule cleared. ”
“Would this be a bad time to tell you that I manufactured a crisis to get her out of the country?” I give her a small smile, hoping that some humor can lighten her mood.
She leans forward, her face serious. “I want to be with you, Sasha. I love how things are between us, how easy and good everything is when we’re together.
But I just can’t make that commitment right now.
I don’t know what my life is going to look like in two months when we finish this show.
Maybe it’ll flop and I’ll go back to my life in Park City.
Maybe it’ll do well and I’ll need to be in Los Angeles full time. ”
It doesn’t escape my notice that she doesn’t mention an option that involves her being in New York. “So, what are you saying?” I don’t know if this means she doesn’t see a future for us.
“I . . .” She sighs. “I can’t make any promises right now.
I thought maybe I could, back when I was in New York, before I knew how crazy my life was going to get.
It’s not that I don’t want to be with you.
I really do. And it’s not that I don’t want to help you adopt Stella.
It’s just that right now, I don’t think I can commit to anything more than trying this long-distance thing and seeing how it goes. ”
“Like I told you before, I don’t want to pressure you into anything you’re not ready for.
Just because I know what I want this to be, what I’ve always wanted it to be between us, doesn’t mean that I expect you to be in the same place mentally or emotionally.
I understand why work has to come first right now,” I tell her, because hockey has always had to come first for me.
Even when Stella first came to live with me, I couldn’t just not show up for games or practices.
I had to learn both balance and compromise, and she will too, eventually.
“I’m okay with long-distance, if that’s what you’re comfortable with.
But Petra, I have to know that you see the possibility of some future between us.
Even if you have no idea what that could look like or how it could work out, I need to know that’s what you want, or there’s no point in us moving forward. ”
She slides her foot up my thigh and sucks her lower lip between her teeth. “Yes, I see a future. Even though I have no idea what it will look like, and even though it scares the shit out of me to trust you.”
“I swear to you,” I say, leaning forward and taking her hand, “I will do everything in my power to protect your heart. I know I screwed up once. I will not make that mistake again.”
Her breath hitches and she opens her mouth to say something but the waitress arrives with my credit card slip right then.
There’s so much heat in Petra’s eyes, I can’t wait to get her home.
My signature at the bottom of the slip is an illegible scrawl, and I slide her sandal back onto her foot and usher her out of there as quickly as possible.