Page 95 of Resisting the Running Back

As if that won’t be the longest few weeks of my life. Ofbothof our lives.

She blows out a breath as we stroll aimlessly along the deck with all the shops, both of us quiet. It feels like we’ve been hit with something I’m not sure we can recover from, and the thought pulses a fear in the pit of my stomach. We can’t let this come between us. We have to pull together.

I glance at the window beside me. They have a sequined jacket for women in twelve different sizes in the window, but no fucking Plan B on this boat.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she says quietly. “If they’re out of it…I guess it wasn’t meant for me to take.”

I nod as I try to be supportive. “I’m sorry. I should’ve changed to a new condom. It’s my fault.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t blame yourself, okay? It’s fine. We’re fine.”

I just wish she was as convincing as she thinks she’s being.

We eventually end up back in our stateroom. We both stare at the bed for a moment as if it’s the bed’s fault.

It’s not. It’s my fault for not changing the condom.

“I’m going to take a quick shower,” I say, and she nods. I should invite her in, but it feels like that would only lead one place, and I’m a little too freaked out at the moment to consider more sex.

And a little too spent. She is, too. She must be exhausted.

I do my best thinking in the shower, and I need a minute to just think right now.

“Okay. Can I just wash my face real quick?” she asks.

I nod, and she gets ready for bed first. By the time I emerge from the shower, she’s asleep. I didn’t have any big revelations while I was in there. Now I guess we just play the waiting game.

I slip into bed beside her. She doesn’t move. She’s facing away from me, where I soon learn she’ll spend the night.

We’re closing in on training camp. Sophie has work to do, too, with a book release coming up. As fun as this vacation has been, we’re careening toward reality, and this is a wake-up call that neither one of us was expecting.

It feels like the condom is suddenly a symbol of everything that was hanging in the balance for us, and when it broke, so did whatever we were starting. It’s early to call that, I know.

But she’s facing away from me, and I’m nervous, and as much as I want to turn in and figure out how we can get through these next few weeks together, I’m not quite sure how to do that when we both have other obligations and feelings and fears that are driving us away from each other.

The answer should be simple.

Eventually the season would start, and we’d be apart simply because of my career. By then, we should’ve been more certain about what this is, and that certainty would’ve been enough to help us get through it.

We don’t have that certainty. Instead, we just have more fears piled on top of fears, and I’m starting to do what I always do.

I’ve always been the quieter twin. I’ve only opened up to a few people in my life—Sophie being one of them, of course. She knows the real me, the one who doesn’t always hide behind silence.

Yet here we are, silence spanning between us and causing a chasm that feels like it’s widening by the very second.

CHAPTER 43: Sophie Summers

What’s Meant to Be Will Be

Neither of us talks about the condom that broke when morning dawns. Neither of us brings up what that might mean about our future. It’s not just me withdrawing into myself. He is, too.

And I have no idea how to get him back.

It felt like we were so close to having it all, and now he’s retreating. The problem is that I don’t know how to deal with a retreating Miller when he’s running scared. That’s the thing. He’sneverretreatedfrom mebefore. I’ve seen him do it to others, but I was always the one he turned to when he ran from someone else.

I don’t know how to erase all this and go back to how things were. I’d already made my peace with the fact that wecouldn’tgo back to how things were, but never did I think we’d wind up with a scare like this so early on.

I think the reason I feel so awkward about it all is that we’ve talked about how he doesn’t really want kids.

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