Page 61 of Forged By Sacrifice

“No?” he responded, trailing after me, not at all put off by my words. Instead, he continued to push rather than walk away. “Because I think I sure as hell would like a chance to explore the idea of one with you.”

Mac

MORE THAN FRIENDS

“At the risk of sounding foolish,

I don't wanna fool around no more.

If we're gonna do this, then let's do this,

You can fix my broken heart if it's all yours.”

Performed by Jason Mraz & Meghan Trainor

Written by Green / Mraz / Trainor / Wells

I followed Georgie to the loft steps where she turned toward me at my words, smoothing her ponytail. I could see that my words had somehow penetrated the armor she’d drawn around herself, because I found a sea of conflicting emotions in her eyes that were a steely gray today.

So, I pushed because I had to. I had to know that I’d tried, or else the regret would have eaten at me for the rest of my life. “Tell me you feel nothing, and I’ll leave you alone. But if you do feel something, then don’t walk away without testing it. Without proving your own theories.”

Back in Rockport, she’d disputed my instinct with some theory of René Descartes, and hell, maybe she was right. Maybe once we dated and spent time together, we wouldn’t suit at all. Maybe instinct should have been left for military campaigns and not love. I wasn’t standing before her, asking her to marry me, but I also didn’t want to start something with her without the possibility that, someday, I might be putting a ring on her finger. That seemed like the worst way to start a relationship?with the knowledge of it ending instead of continuing.

She rubbed her forehead. “It’s just…so impossible.”

“Can you allow us, for a few minutes, to just be a law student and a senator’s aide?”

“It isn’t that simple.”

She was right. It wasn’t. But in the weeks that we’d been avoiding each other, I’d done nothing but think about this…us. About her. I hadn’t been able to get her off my damn brain. She’d been with me in the dark of the night. She’d been with me in the shower. She’d been with me when I was supposed to be reading gun stats and modifying the bill Matherton was putting before Congress next month.

I hadn’t been able to escape the thought of us even when I’d gone home for the weekend. Instead, my thoughts had run in circles about my career goals and her family. I thought about what Dani had said about just dating her with the thought of it ending someday, long before I ever announced an election campaign. I even thought about what it would be like to just assuage the physical need that was burning between us and leaving it at that. But at the end of every discussion I’d had with myself, I’d come back to the one thing I’d said to her that had been true.

That when I found the one I wanted to date, I’d be all in. That I would know, by instinct, that it was forever. I didn’t think my instincts were that far off.

Regardless, what I did know, without one shred of doubt, was that I wanted more. More moments. More kisses. More her. More time to figure out if my gut was right, or wrong, or completely screwed.

“Dani and I are going home next Friday for Labor Day. We have a family tradition of ending summer with tennis and poker. Come with us. Get to know me. Allow us to spend time together before you write the idea of us off.”

She turned away, looking out at the Washington skyline. The Capitol building was slowly coming alive with lights as the summer sun sank lower in the sky. I eased up behind her. I touched her shoulder and bent so my lips brushed slightly against her ear and the row of earrings that traveled their way up her skin.

“I want to know everything about you,” I told her. “You’re light and dark and hopes and fears all wrapped together. I need to know why. I need to know who Georgie is beneath the skin and the interchangeable contacts.”

She shivered. I wasn’t sure if it was at my words or the way my lips barely caressed her ear.

“A weekend,” she breathed out, her voice quivering like my insides were.

“A weekend at least,” I said with my breath still echoing across her skin.

“Okay,” she breathed out, pulling away and disappearing up the stairs. I let her go because I couldn’t believe I’d won. A smile filled my face and was reflected back at me in the window, joy surging through me that was quickly replaced with unease. Because what if she saw us all and ran for the hills instead of staying?

? ? ?

Georgie and I didn’t avoid each other the next couple days. In fact, we seemed to have reached a truce. A truce that when we were in the same room, we sat next to each other. But she was working after school with Theresa, and Dani and I were working late on the gun bill, so we didn’t see each other except fleetingly. But knowing I was going to be around her for an entire weekend seemed to soften the knots that had worked themselves into all my muscles since I’d first gotten back to D.C. and found her ensconced in the apartment.

Thursday night, I was packing when I was interrupted by a text from Mom.

MOM: Dani says you’re bringing a girl home.

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