by Maisey Yates
“There is nothing to talk about,” Connor said, his throat closing down tight. No one was supposed to know about this. Because once people knew about it, they would have to call it something. Because as Jack was proving, they would have questions. And he didn’t know what to call it. He didn’t know what to do with it. He wasn’t ready for this.
* * *
LISS FELT AS THOUGH the entire scene before her was playing out in slow motion. She was still dazed from the orgasm Connor had given her, still feeling a buzz from the words he’d spoken to her. From the feeling of closeness that was warming her heart even now. And now this. Jack had seen them. And Connor was flipping out. The warmth in her heart was fading now.
“And if you say anything to anyone, especially to Eli or Kate...”
“Are you threatening me?” Jack asked, his tone incredulous. Frankly, Liss felt a little bit incredulous.
“Just don’t say anything,” Connor said.
“Would it be that bad?” Liss asked, her voice shaking. She knew she shouldn’t be doing this here, knew she shouldn’t be doing this now, in front of Jack, but it seemed like they were. “Would it be the worst thing in the world if everybody knew?”
“Knew what?” Connor asked. “That you and I had sex? How is that his business?” He gestured to Jack. “How is that anyone’s business?”
“It’s more than that,” she said, her throat tightening.
He shook his head. “It’s not.”
“Somehow, I think this isn’t a conversation that needs to involve me,” Jack said, turning. Then he stopped and faced Connor again. “Connor, I’m really glad you stopped drinking. Maybe also try to stop being such an asshole to people who care about you. And I don’t mean me. But if you could make an attempt to not fuck up the best you have? Yeah, that would be good. That’s your next step.” And then Jack turned and walked out of the barn.
Leaving Liss with Connor. Leaving Liss with her heart racing, her head spinning and her throat aching. A pain that was spreading, expanding down to her chest. This was it. And she knew it. She didn’t want it to be the end.
“So that’s it? It’s not anything more than us having sex?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s not. Not for me.” She knew she would regret this. She regretted it already. But she had to say it, anyway. “As far as I’m concerned there isn’t anything complicated about this. I love you, Connor.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Please, don’t do this, Liss.”
“I will do it. Because I’ve spent years not doing it. Connor, I...I’ve wanted you forever. And I’ve been too afraid to have you. And I’m tired of being afraid. You just told me not to settle, well, I’m not settling. I’m not settling for friendship when what I want is everything.”
“I gave everything once. I can’t give it again. Not to you. Not anyone,” he said, the fear that was lacing his voice real, visceral.
And she cared. Cared about what he’d been through, how it had affected him. But she also knew that he couldn’t live in it forever. That couldn’t be the beginning and end of him. Just like this couldn’t be the beginning and end of them.
“I understand. I understand what you’ve been through. And I understand that it’s hard. But, Connor, you can’t...”
“Do not tell me that you understand. Because you don’t. Nobody does.”
“Connor...”
“No. Who did you love that you lost?”
“You, dumb ass. When you fell for someone else. When you married someone else. Somebody that I also loved. And so I put it aside. Because that’s what friends do. Because I would never ever have done anything to come between you and Jessie. I let it go when I had to. I sat on our swing—it was our swing to me—and I cried like I would never see you again. Then I lost you again, when she died and you fell into a bottle. I have lost you over and over again. I know what it means.” She took a shuddering breath, trying to hold back her tears. “But I don’t have to let it go now. I wasn’t ready for you then, anyway. All I was ready for was half-ass declarations and a comfortable relationship. I loved the idea of you, but I never had the courage to do anything about it. But I do now. You know, they say timing is a bitch. And yeah, it kind of has been in the situation. The one time I thought I was ready to change our relationship, you proposed to someone else. And then I moved on. And then life... I don’t want you to misunderstand and think that somehow your marriage ending like it did was something I was waiting for or something that I wanted. I respected the fact that you married her. I moved on. I never wished anything...”
“I know,” he said, the words tight.
“I needed you to know that, though. Just like I need you to know that I’ve had feelings for you for a long time. And that I love you now.”
“I can’t do this. Please don’t make me do this.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant. If he meant love, or if he meant ending what they had.
She didn’t want to end it. But she’d realized in a blinding flash when he’d said all that to Jack, that she was doing the same thing she always did. Taking care of him, seeing to his needs and crushing what she wanted underneath that. So that she could have a piece of him, when what she wanted was all of him.
She hated this. Hated watching it crumble around her. But what the hell else could she do? Live the rest of her life loving him like this, knowing what it was like to be with him, but never being able to have him in the way that she wanted? Because sex wasn’t enough. Sex and friendship wasn’t enough. She loved him. A real, all-consuming kind of love that didn’t want fences or division.
Yes, she was his friend. But she could never be his friend in the way she had been before. Come to that, she didn’t want to be.
“I’m not making you do anything,” she said, feeling weary down to her bones. “This is just what’s happening.”
“No,” he said, the word intense, shaking. “I am tired of things just happening. I have choices, dammit. I am not choosing this. I want things to stay the same.”
“They can’t,” she said, her throat getting so tight she could hardly speak. “Because they aren’t.”
“Damn you, Liss.” He shook his head and took a step back from her. “I’ve lost too much. Please don’t make me lose you, too.”
“You have to make a choice. If you lose me, it’s because you are choosing to lose me. Because you’re too afraid to—”
He cut her off. “I’m not choosing to lose you. You are changing the rules. You’re supposed to be my friend.”
“I am your friend,” she said. “But I can’t ignore the rest of what I feel. Not even for you.”
He closed the space between them and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her against him, his expression intense. “What is it you want?”
She blinked back tears, her heart beating so hard she was afraid the fragile thing would crack against her breastbone. “I want...”
Connor swore and reached into his pocket, pulling out his cell phone. “I have a text,” he growled. “Eli proposed.”
“They need us to come back?”
“Yeah,” he said, putting his phone back into his pocket.
“Great.” She tried to smile, but she was pretty sure she lost the ability to force the corners of her mouth to curve up.
She followed him out of the barn, keeping a heavy distance, her heart pounding dully in her ears as they approached the lights and the revelry that they had left behind only forty-five minutes ago. How had they gone from that wonderful, intense moment, when he had taken her up against the barn, shaking, to this? How had it all fallen down so quickly?
Nothing had caught on fire tonight, but something had been destroyed nonetheless.
She worked as hard as she could to force a smile as they walked through a knot of people and int
o the barn, where Sadie was grinning from ear to ear, holding her hand out, showing her ring off to everyone around them.
Kate’s face was flushed, joy radiating from her. Even Jack looked happy. And Eli... Well, the man had become sheriff and gotten engaged to be married in the same evening. He was reserved, always had been, but right now he was grinning so hard she thought his face might break.
She needed to say congratulations. She needed to be happy for them. But she wasn’t. Because she wanted that. She wanted to be engaged to Connor. She wanted to marry Connor. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life in a halfway point between being friends and lovers.
She couldn’t spend the rest of her life being an employee to her relationships. Working hard, waiting for her reward to be given to her, waiting for a good progress report. Hoping she had done well enough to keep the job. Connor was right. She had to want more. And it had to start with him, because it was the hardest place to start.
Of all of the people in her life, she needed him most, and losing him scared her more than anything. But what she wanted mattered. She couldn’t give the rest of her life in the service of buying him groceries, having sex with him when he needed sex, being a friend when he needed a friend. Not when she needed more.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Kate asked, gesturing to Sadie’s ring.
Kate looked all dreamy and wistful all of a sudden, which was unusual for her.
“Yes,” Liss said, knowing her answer sounded as forced as it felt.
Sadie moved closer to Liss and Kate. “He had a whole little private alcove all set up with more Mason jars and candles and Christmas lights. It was all golden and glowing, and private and perfect. And then everyone was here so we got to announce it right away.” She was beaming, for happiness brighter than any of the lights strung up in the trees. “And I really want both of you to be in the wedding,” Sadie said.
Liss’s face burned. She sincerely doubted she would be invited to the wedding after all of this finished between Connor and herself. Just the thought made her chest seize up, made it impossible to breathe. And at the same time, seeing this, knowing there would be a wedding, it solidified in her what she had to do. It solidified what she wanted. And she knew that no matter how much it would suck, her decision had been made.
“I’ve never been in a wedding,” Kate said, looking as if she’d been given a particularly good Christmas gift.
“You’ll have to wear a dress,” Sadie said.
Kate’s smile dimmed a little bit. “You sure I can’t be a groomsman?”
“I promise to keep ruffles to a minimum.”
“You’re going to have to keep ruffles at a zero count. I do not do ruffles.”
“We have a while for you to worry about it. I have a feeling the wedding is going to be a monster. The whole town was here for the engagement, so we can’t very well exclude them from the wedding.”
Connor was talking to Eli, wearing a smile that was as forced as her own. And her expression and her heart sank straight down into her stomach, and slid farther down into her toes. She couldn’t do this. Not now.
“Congratulations,” she said to Sadie. “We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay? I know there are a lot of people here who want your attention. And I’m just...really tired.”
Sadie looked concerned but didn’t say anything. Liss forced one more feeble attempt at looking happy before turning and walking out of the barn.
She let out a hard breath, one that verged on a sob. She didn’t know how she was going to get through this. She didn’t know how she was going to survive when she was sure that her heart was going to be crushed in Connor’s hand, squished into a useless, lifeless nothing. And she would be left walking around with a vacant spot in her chest where it was supposed to be.
She walked up the steps and into the house, slamming the door closed behind her. She should pack. Because she had no doubt this would end in her leaving. It would have to. But instead, she flung open one of the cabinets and pulled out her favorite mug. She went over to the tap and filled it with water then put it in the microwave, pulling it out when it was hot and putting in a tea bag. A totally plebeian way to fix a cup of tea, but as a diversionary tactic, it worked.
She heard the front door open and slam shut, followed by footsteps.
“What are you doing?” Connor asked from his position in the kitchen door.
“What are you doing?” She tied the string on her tea bag, dipping it in and out of the water. “Shouldn’t you be off celebrating with your brother?”
“Unsurprisingly, Liss, I am not in a celebratory mood.”
“Unsurprising because you never are?”
“Unsurprising because my best friend has suddenly decided she wants to destroy eighteen years’ worth of a relationship.”
“No,” she said, slamming her mug down on the counter and sloshing hot liquid over the side. “Your best friend wants you to pull your head out of your ass and offer her something better than occasional sex and being your grocery monkey.”
“Now who’s being an asshole?” he asked, his expression thunderous. “You know you’re more to me than that. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed. To pretend I haven’t shown you. But that does not mean I’m ready for...”
“What? What exactly did I ask you for? I just told you I loved you. I didn’t go making demands.”
“You want a relationship.”
“Yeah, imagine that, I want a relationship with a man I’m sharing my body and soul with. What a monster. How dare I.”
“Stop. You’re the one reducing it so you can try to strengthen your point.”
“Am I? Because you’re the one who freaked out because Jack caught us kissing. You’re the one who threatened your friend. Because people finding out about us was somehow the worst thing in the world to you.”
“I’m not ready to share it.”
“Why?”
“Because then we have to call it something. And I don’t know what to call it.”
She put a hand over her eyes and scrubbed it down her face. “And we’re back to this. Because I do know what to call it.”
“I don’t want to have to say this,” he said, looking away, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “You’re making me say it.”
All of her energy, all of her anger, drained out of her, leaving her feeling deflated. Exhausted. “Say it. Just say it, Connor. If there’s one perk to the fact that we’re friends, it’s that we can be honest with each other.”
“I don’t love you. I can’t. Not like you mean. Not like you want.”
There was a small part of her that had been prepared to hear these words from Connor Garrett for the past eighteen years. A small part of her that had always imagined her declaration of love, should she ever have enough courage to make it, would end this way. But there had been a larger part of her, a part of herself she hadn’t realized was quite so strong, that believed firmly that he would pull her into his arms and tell her he loved her, too.
But that wasn’t happening. He wasn’t saying it.
She’d slept with him. Shared his bed. Shared his body. Listened to his secrets, his pain. She had held him while he cried. And still he wasn’t in love with her.
And right then and there she knew he never would be.
“Oh,” she said, feeling light-headed.
“I can’t.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I just... I’m a shitty husband, anyway.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to swallow the lump that had lodged itself in the center of her throat. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t try to make me feel better with stupid crap like that. I know you, Connor Garrett. You are never going to convince me that I could love a better man. Hell, if it were that easy for me to love someone else, I would have done it by n
ow. But I didn’t love Marshall. It’s always been you.”
“Stop. Just stop. You should want it all, and I’m not that. I am a drunken—” a tear rolled down her cheek “—broken jackass who doesn’t do anything but worry about himself and his own pain. I’ve loved and lost and decided it’s not worth it.” Another tear chased that one, following the same trail the first one had forged. “You’re going to find someone who isn’t a terrible person like Marshall. And someone who isn’t screwed up like me. Dammit, Liss. No tears for me.”
She scrubbed her hand over her cheek, not able to wipe the tears away fast enough. “I’ll cry for you if I damn well please. I’ve been crying for you for years. On your wedding day... Oh, Connor, I cried like I would break.”
“Liss...”
“This isn’t new. And it isn’t going to fade.”
“I’m not the man you should be feeling this for. I don’t deserve it, baby. Just...don’t.”
Liss crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Oh, thank you, Connor. Could you make all of my life decisions for me?”
“That’s what friends are for,” he said, his voice rough.
“That’s another thing. I can’t do this. Not like this. You have to understand that things are not going back to the way they were before we were sleeping together just because you have made a blanket statement about how you won’t fall in love with me.”
“That’s bullshit. That is not what we agreed on.”
She laughed, the sound completely out of place in the conversation and setting. “Well, that’s too damn bad.”
“I can’t believe you. I can’t believe this all-or-nothing crap you’re throwing at me.”
“You don’t understand, Connor.” She was shouting now, and she didn’t care. “I’m not choosing to do this to you. But my feelings have changed, and what you mean to me has changed. I spent a long time pushing those feelings down. I even let them go for a while. Because I had to. And then this happened. And I really thought that I could do this, and I wouldn’t fall in love with you, and that I wouldn’t need more. I really did believe it would be enough. But it isn’t. I’m not demanding a change. The change happened. It happened in me, and if I went back...Connor, my heart would break every day.”
