Page 76 of No More Heartbreakers

My eyelids flew open, and my heart seized in a new brand of panic. I must have moved, because in his sleep Aric made a muffled sound of protest and drew me back against him.

I closed my eyes again and stayed still, but I didn’t sleep for a long, long time.

TWENTY

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Although I knew the end of the road was coming for us eventually, I couldn’t seem to resist any chance to be around Aric.

Over the next month we spent almost all our free time together, though I had to fit in visits with my family at least once a week. I didn’t tell them about him, but they must have suspected something, because they asked about him all the time.

Maybe our on-air chemistry was a little too good. I couldn’t help it—I was happy. And I was changing, though I hated to admit it, even to myself.

It was harder and harder to deny what I felt for Aric, how much I was starting to need him.

We talked, we played, we grew closer in every way, which was wonderful, but also terrifying. He opened up to me freely, without seeming to have reservations or second thoughts, and he never pressured me for more. Emotionally or physically.

And he’d been right—I absolutelyshould notsleep with him—I couldn’t—not if I was ever going to survive our coming separation. I was very firm in that opinion in the light of day.

However, when our late-night make-out sessions got a little too hot, it was always Aric who found the will to pull away and give us both time to calm down, insisting we wait until the right time.

He was so confident that time would eventually come. But I couldn’t seem to relax intousthe same way.

When I was away from him, I missed him with an intensity that was frightening to acknowledge. When I was with him, I was right back in the tug-of-war match.

A fierce attraction pulled me toward him with the inevitability of gravity, while I desperately dug my heels in, fighting to stay on my side of the line, to keep some sort of barrier between us against the pain that would certainly come when all this was over.

Hale called occasionally. The conversation was always friendly with no mention of getting back together or declaring it over for good and forever.

Maybe he was waiting for me to bring it up while I was waiting forhimto do it.

Maybe I was a chicken. But honestly, if he wasn’t asking, I didn’t want to discuss it.

We’d agreed a break meant freedom on both ends to explore other paths, and Hale sounded pretty happy lately.

I guess I was hoping our relationship would dissolve silently and that its death wouldn’t require any sort of pronouncement or eulogy or potentially ugly and hurtful conversation.

We’d just go our separate ways in life. That definitely seemed to be where we were headed.

He hadn’t asked if I was dating anyone, and he hadn’t mentioned his own pursuits in that area. For all I knew, he’d met someone nice and was enjoying the kind of “quality time” with her I’d been having with Aric.

The thought of Hale with someone new didn’t bother me at all. That’s how I finally realized I had never really loved him.

Now the thought of Aric being with someone else—that drove me insane. Which is how he wound up where I never expected to see him—at my family’s dinner table.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” he’d argued Monday morning as I brushed my teeth in his bathroom.

Daddy had dropped by the station the day before and got to talking with Aric about NFL teams. He’d shocked me by inviting Aric to come by the house for Monday Night Football.

Aric stood behind me, talking to my reflection. “He promised me some real Southern cooking. How could I say no?”

Reaching up, I pinched Aric’s cheeks together, forcing his lips into a fish-mouth. “Like this, N-O.”

I squeezed twice then let him go as he laughed at his silly face in the mirror.

“It’s going to be weird. And I’d really rather skip the whole thing,” I muttered through the foam.

“Okay. If that’s what you really want. Colleen asked if I wanted to go see a movie with her in Augusta, maybe grab a bite to eat. And since I apparently don’t have agirlfriendwho’d object…”

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