Chapter 9 Caden
NINE
CADEN
“Thank you, sir. Hope you enjoyed your stay,” the valet told me when I pressed a bill into his palm after he handed me the keys.
I had enjoyed my stay. I’d enjoyed sleepy morning sex with Sabrina only a few hours after we’d finally drifted off to sleep. I’d enjoyed sitting close to her at her family brunch, touching her as much as I wanted to until we told everyone goodbye.
What I wasn’t enjoying was the awkward silence that had loomed over us ever since we’d headed back to the hotel room to get our stuff. The spell was broken and the game was over, and now, we were just friends.
As if just friends wasn’t hard enough before.
Sabrina climbed into the passenger seat after throwing her bag in my trunk. I hadn’t been able to read her since we’d left brunch. She didn’t seem sad or anxious, but she wasn’t the bubbly Sabrina she’d been at the wedding or the immediate morning after.
“Thank you again for coming,” she finally said when we were more than halfway home.
“I enjoyed coming,” I said, flicking my eyes to hers with a smirk. “Hope you did too.”
Her eyes widened before she covered her face and laughed. It was a wimpy way to bring it up, but one of us had to.
“I did. Very much,” she said, her voice soft and sultry and getting my damn hopes up. I needed to focus on the road and how I was going to handle this when I stopped the car in front of her apartment building.
“This doesn’t have to be weird, right? We went back and forth like this for years, remember? We had a system.”
I nodded, taking slow breaths through my nostrils. Yeah, we had a system. A fucked-up system that had only worked for one of us.
“No, it doesn’t have to be weird. We can keep the weekend the weekend and just be us again now.”
Because making love to Sabrina again while knowing she’d never be mine might kill me.
“Right,” she said, straightening in her seat and turning her head toward the Southern State Parkway whirring past her window.
I detected a twinge of regret in her “right,” but she didn’t fight me.
It had to go back to how it was. As simple and as complex as that.
Jesse said I had to tell her, but what would it accomplish?
She’d said she wanted to cross the line for a night, and I’d gone along with it.
If I was feeling the devastation from the fallout, I only had myself to blame.
“I hope you can relax a little today,” Sabrina said as I walked her to her door. “I put you through a lot.”
She laughed, sifting her hand through her blond hair when the wind blew it across her face.
I took her face in my hands, smoothing the loose locks of hair behind her ears, and kissed her forehead.
“You didn’t put me through anything. I was there for it all, so thanks for letting me tag along.”
“Sure,” she said. “If you’re up for it, maybe we can hang out next weekend.”
“That could be good. I’ll text you.”
I smiled and headed back to where I’d parked. I glanced at Sabrina’s puzzled stare and forced my feet to keep moving in the direction of my car.
I wouldn’t cut her out of my life, but I needed a minute after this weekend. I’d compartmentalize what happened between us so we could move on—once I could figure out how the hell to hide away memories of one of the best weekends of my life because they hurt too much.