Page 71 of Breathless With Her

“With another man?” I growled out the words and then froze. How the hell did that come from my head? “You know what, I didn’t mean to say that. It’s not what I meant.”

She paled just a bit, but then her eyebrows lowered, and her nostrils flared. “You know what? Sure. That can be a reason. But just go, Devin. Thank you for your help. For everything.” She swallowed hard, and her eyes went glassy, but she blinked the tears away so quickly that I almost missed it. “Thank you for everything,” she repeated. “But this just got too serious, too quickly, and I wasn’t looking for this. I don’t want to hurt you. So you just need to go. Okay?”

The mixer turned on the counter behind her, something beeped on the oven, and her phone started ringing. And all I could do was stare at her.

She was pushing me away.

Pushing me away, and I didn’t know how to fight it.

I didn’t want to force her to love me.

Didn’t want to make her do anything.

She didn’t want to hurt me?

“Too late, Erin. Too. Fucking. Late.”

Her eyes widened. I didn’t care. I couldn’t. Because I didn’t know how to fix this. I was the one who was supposed to be able to fix things, right? And I couldn’t.

She didn’t want me. Fine. I wouldn’t be here.

I just had to figure it out.

I turned on my heel, and I left. She didn’t call me back.

She didn’t reach out for me, didn’t want me to come back so we could talk it out.

She had said right from the beginning that this had to be casual.

I had been the one to change that.

So, fuck it.

Apparently, it was over.

For good.

Fuck.

Chapter 15

Erin

* * *

I mean,I knew I was an idiot. I knew I had things to work through. I knew I needed to protect myself. I knew I needed to protect Devin.

But, apparently, I was a bigger idiot and more of a horrible person than I ever knew.

“I miss you, Heath,” I said, whispering at my TV as I ate my cookie dough right out of the jar. They made edible cookie dough these days, perfect to help me when I was a stupid idiot who didn’t know how to talk about my feelings and tell anyone what I was thinking. Not that I actually knew what I was feeling or thinking.

But edible cookie dough could at least help. Maybe.

That and watching10 Things I Hate About You.

When Heath Ledger died, I had done my best to never watch another movie with him in it. It physically hurt to see him. It hadn’t been like that with other actors. I had quickly been able to fall into a Robin Williams movie or even an Alan Rickman film. It had hurt to watch them, but maybe it was because I knew what the loss of Heath Ledger had done to me that I had thrown myself into watchingSense and SensibilityorDie Hard. Into watchingAladdinandPatch Adams. Of course, the latter probably wasn’t the best idea for me because it just made me cry harder. But I had watched those movies. However, in the years since losing Heath Ledger, I hadn’t watched a single one of his films. I owned all of them on DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital. Mostly because I hadn’t wanted my inability to watch him to hurt the bottom line. Not that it actually mattered in the end, but my brain was weird that way.

But today, I’d decided it would be the perfect day to watch the first movie where I had fallen in love with him. When Patrick sang that beautiful song to Kat with the marching band, I loved him. When he smiled, those dimples peeking out from his face, I had fallen for him hard.

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