Page 134 of Full Mountie

Oh, he’s got it so fucking wrong. I bump up against his chest. “Is that so? Is that what was going through your mind at a wedding between two people who love each other? That I must be using you?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“That’s what I hear.” I lick my lips. “What the hell do you think was going throughmymind at the wedding?”

He shoves back against my chest. “I don’t need to guess. It was written all over your face. You love Beth.”

“Yeah. With my whole heart. But that doesn’t crowd you out. I love you, too.”

Hugh shakes his head. “It’s not the same.”

I nod. “No, you’re right. It’s notexactlythe same. You complete me in different ways.”

“We can’t share you.”

“You don’t…it’s not like that.” I rub my hand against my chest. Why does this fucking hurt so much? This is supposed to be the happy, easy part. I’d decided to come and confess just how much I want him, how muchwewant him. But now the conversation's twisted.

His jaw flexes and his eyes glint. Hard and unyielding. “A lot has changed in the last ten years. I’ve changed. I’m more experienced now, but smarter, too. And I know what I want.” He shakes his head. “And what I don’t want.”

No. “Don’t try and pretend you don’t want us.”

“Maybe you have no clue what I want. Or what I wanted back then.”

“You were never shy about making that known.”

“I wanted you.”

I know what he means and it makes me shake. “You wanted—” Sex. An affair. Excitement.

Not me without all of that.

Except that’s exactly what he means.

He gives me a wounded look. “I wantedyou. And you left me.”

My mouth is dry and my heart is pounding so fast it might just explode. “I’m not leaving you now. I’m asking you to come back. I’m asking you to give me a chance.”

“I did. I gave you a chance.”

He can’t dig his heels in like this. It’s not fair. “Ten years ago? Fuck you. I didn’t know who I was then. And we didn’t have Beth.”

“Does she need to be a part of us, for there to be an us?”

I stare at him, dumbstruck. I don’t know how to answer that. “Do you not want…” No, I can’t finish that thought.

His face twists. “Of course I do. But you still can’t imagine just being with me. Even if it’s only hypothetical.”

It’s not until he stalks out, slamming the door behind him, that I realize I never got a chance to tell him that I was thinking the same shit as he was during Gavin’s wedding ceremony.

Fuck.

No, this isn’t how this ends. And I’m sure as shit not waiting for him in this sad, depressing shell of an apartment. I grab my keys and head after him.

48

Hugh

Idon’t knowwhere I’m going. I get as far as the alley behind my building before the adrenaline crash slams into me and I stop.

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