Page 90 of Holding Out

“I’m sorry I didn’t stop to explain who she was or try to tell you why she was there—everything happened fast, and I just wanted to get it over with.I’m sorry.That was dumb.But please—I don’t know what you’re thinking, but whatever it is, that’s not how it went down.She just showed up.And she wanted me to get my stuff out of her basement—”

He was doing this wrong, he realized suddenly.He wasn’t saying the important stuff.He was just babbling.

“Your stuff.”She took a breath.“In her basement?What, is that a metaphor?”

“No, for real, my actual stuff.I—I never got it out.”

“You never got your stuff out.Of her house.”

Her voice was flat, and he could see how ridiculous it sounded now.And how damning.

“You left your stuff at her house fortwoyears.Clearly, youwantedto get back together otherwise you would have gathered up your stuff and moved on.Nate said—”

“What?What did Nate say?”He was cold again.

“That you were trying to bang enough women to forget her, but that you’d take her back in a minute if she’d have you.”

She looked like she was one sentence away from bursting into tears, and he reached out and tried to tug her into his arms, to comfort her with his body and warmth, but she wouldn’t come.

That was when he really started to get scared.

“Becca.Listen.There was a time when what Nate said was true.There was a time when my stuff was at Marina’s house because I thought maybe, one day, that would be our house again.And I would have done just about anything to make that happen.But that was a long time ago.She’s marrying Scott now.And moving to the East Coast.Wecan’tever get back together.”

“And I’m supposed to feel like that makes it okay.You wanted to get back together with her until you couldn’t, and now that you can’t?I’m the next best thing?”She was shaking her head.

“That wasbefore.I haven’t felt that way since I met you.”

“I can’t, Griff.I just—I promised myself.I promised New Becca I’d never do that again.Put my life on hold for someone.Wait and wait for someone who couldn’t deliver.And, Griff, I saw your face today.When you came in and she was there.I’ve seen you look like that before, so don’t try to tell me—”

“What do you mean, you’ve seen me look like that before?”His heart was pounding so hard it was difficult to think straight.

“That night in Seattle, after the Edgewater—”

“What are you talking about?”He willed himself to breathe, willed his pulse to slow down, as he once had during battle.Breathe.

“When you had the flashback.You said her name.”

“What?”A feeling was barreling down on him.A familiar and terrible feeling.Something coming he could prevent, if only he could say the right words.

“When you were coming out of the fog, you thought I was her and you looked at me—at her—like she was all you needed in the world to be happy.”

“Wait—I what?Why didn’t you tell me that?”

Panic had risen up, and it was making him slower and dumber.

“You mean, tell you that I think you’re still in love with your ex-wife on the night that you took my virginity?I’m sorry, but I couldn’t quite find a way to work that into the conversation.”

It wasn’t her words that made the panic rise and twist, like a vine around his throat.It was her tone of despair.

“And that’s what you thought you saw on my face today, when I saw her in the office.”

She was nodding.

“You’re wrong, Becca.It was just shock, and the weirdness of seeing her again after so long.That’s all it was.”

But she was shaking her head, and his chest tightened.It was like he’d stepped into the middle of a situation he’d already lost control of.It was beyond his reach, the moment to salvage it already missed, receding into the past.His mind calling out,too late, too late, too late, I knew, I knew, Iknew.

“Jesus, Becca, bereasonable.”He heard the edge in his voice and tried again to bring himself down, but the anger was rising with the suffocating fear, the two emotions twined around each other like bittersweet around the branches of a tree.

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