2 #3
At this point, I’m not sure what would be the worse fate for Celine: leaving her to the ridicule of having been jilted or dragging her into my family’s shame.
“We can . . . reschedule. Maybe not on the night of a full moon,” I suggest, even though it feels like the animal pacing in my soul has less room just by saying it out loud. “It’s less traditional, but considering last week, maybe our families will understand.”
“Logan, no. I think it’s too soon.”
I stare at her for a beat, not sure where she’s going with this. I thought she was here because I owed her and her family an explanation, a commitment to make things right. I promised them a match, an olive branch between neighboring territories.
She knows this is partly a business decision for both our families just as much as I do.
I’m sure we held on for as long as we did, through every doubt and hesitation, because her family wants the connection to work.
Their family is large and reaches far. Perhaps it was a larger part of this union than I was really willing to admit to myself, because the brewery needs their connections to other werewolf packs.
But a slight frown touches her face as she shakes her head a little. “I know we’ve made a lot of plans, but maybe we need some breathing room to make sure this is what you really want.”
“We don’t need to,” I assure her. “Look, I know how badly you want to move out of your parents’ house—”
She stops me, reaching out and taking my hand, our fingers tangling together. “I can live in their house a little longer. I’ve already been there twenty-five years; another few months won’t kill me.”
I hate the thought of keeping her waiting. I hate that I’m the cause of this.
“You said they were driving you crazy.”
“That’s just the norm.” Celine sighs, her hair swishing gently as she shakes her head. She squeezes my hand, pursing her lips for a moment.
I knock the back of my hand gently against hers, and Celine’s eyes catch mine, sharply, almost with reproach. Don’t you dare.
She’s always been quick to accuse tenderness of being pity.
I nod and release her hand. “Well, I hope you have fun at the party. If you need someone to pick you up, you have my number.”
She scoffs, not in a mean way. She just knows me too well. “Don’t feel obligated to be my knight in shining armor. It doesn’t fit you.”
“I meant it in a ‘bullying one of my brothers to do it’ kind of way.”
“Send Shawn. I hear he’s back in town. He’s always been good company. Although, it might make my parents think they should try to set me up with him instead.”
“You know he’s married.”
“To a human? Still?”
My composure falters for just a second. I guess I’m not surprised she didn’t stick around that night. “Still” would be categorically incorrect, and yet the truth is unnecessarily complicated for the same result. “Yeah.”
Celine chews the inside of her cheek for a moment, before she offers, “I’m glad he’s happy.”
“Only because you don’t have a front-row seat. It’s perfectly nauseating.”
She laughs. “Oh, you would think that.”
A beat goes by, her hand still in mine, where the air goes still and quiet, far too empty.
We’re not touchy people, either of us. When we’re with others, I try to remember to kiss her cheek as we say our goodbyes, but when we’re alone, we often falter. We used to be more comfortable with each other. But since we got engaged, there has been an awkward, hovering distance.
No one who knows me would call me a romantic. I have always assumed I would simply feel compelled to kiss her at some point, because it was the right moment.
Celine looks up into my eyes, her mouth set in a line. She pauses to touch my face.
It doesn’t feel like butterflies, or like some heart-stopping moment in the movies, because life isn’t the movies.
If nothing else, there’s a tug of guilt for all I’ve put her through.
I don’t know why I couldn’t go through with it.
With Celine, I would have everything I need, everything I’ve ever been taught to want, so why did it make me feel trapped?
Again, I can’t help but hesitate, and I see it in her eyes. She knows. Maybe she understands the reason I ran away from our wedding better than I do.
“I want to do it right, Logan. No cold feet. I want absolute certainty. And if you can’t find that in yourself . . . then I don’t think we should do this,” Celine says quietly, but firmly. She lets go of my face, and shifts away from me, detangling her hand from mine.
Briefly, it seems like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. It seems like she contemplates shaking my hand, only to opt for an awkward shrug.
“Well, um, I’ve got to get going. It’s a long drive,” Celine says, a hint of self-consciousness peeking through her invincible armor.
She tugs the antique ring off her finger and sets it down on my desk. “I’ll see you at church on Sunday, and we’re going to tell my mother we’re ending things.”
I nod feeling oddly . . . nothing. It’s not as devastating as I feel it should be.
All those doubts, those pauses, have piled up somewhere in the back of my mind, and they keep me from begging her to give me another chance like some lovelorn fool.
Then again, maybe I just don’t have it in me to beg.
Celine crosses to my office door, opening it and pausing there. She looks at me over her shoulder. A slight smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “And Logan? Unclench your jaw for a little bit.”