Page 67 of Snowed In With The Second Chance Daddy

“I know how I feel. I know I love you.”

Iris is running. She’s standing in one spot, but she’s running far away. I can see it in her eyes, that focus on the horizon to get as far from me as possible.

It’s something I noticed about her in the beginning. Her wildness. Her need to be free. It’s embodied in the colorful hair, her love of her motorcycle, the daredevil in her.

I locked her down fast for fear that wild spirit would take her away.

I lost her anyway. My control came from a place of terror. It can’t be like that anymore.

“You live in Seattle, and I’ll live here. I’ll look for a job there, and I’ll move.”

“And then you’ll resent me.”

“I won’t.”

“Trevor–”

“Iwon’t. I want to be where you are. Don’t you want that?”

Iris shakes her head. “I can’t even tell you I love you, and you want to follow me to Seattle?” Her hand drops from mine. “It doesn’t make sense. Besides, I’m not taking you away from your family.”

“I didn’t tell you that story to make you afraid to get between us. If anything, they’ve shown me what I want. What matters. It’s you. It’s us.”

“I find it hard to believe that after all this time, you can just flip on a dime.”

I try to swallow.

It’s not flipping on a dime; it’s been here all this time.

“But you don’t love me?”

She grabs her furry jacket off the ground and slides it on. “Trevor, don’t put me in this position.”

“You don’t.”

“I can’t say it.”

“If you did, you’d be able to say it.”

Iris balls her hands up. “That’s not how that works. I can love you and not be able to tell you, and now you’re forcing it out of me, so fine, yes, I love you! I love you, and that scares me.”

It’s a hollow victory. “Why?”

“Because you hurt me, Trevor! You destroyed me!”

“But I explained. Last night, I told you why I did it, I–”

Iris runs her hands over her face. “That doesn’t just fix the past six months! I thought I lost you forever.”

“And now I’m here!” I shoot to my feet. “And I’m telling you that we can do this again. Iwantto do this again.”

“I don’t know ifIwant to.”

The world stops. I wouldn’t be surprised if outside people have stopped moving, the train has stopped running, clocks have stopped ticking.

“You don’t know if youwantto?”

“We said it would be just sex. Why couldn’t we keep it just–”

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