Page 9 of Same Time Next Year

One crook of my finger and this Goliath of a man would probably rush me to the nearest dark corner and take out a treasure trove of pent-up sexual frustration on me, those powerful hips pumping like a jackhammer. But I’m definitely not looking at the laces of his hockey pants and wondering how fast he could get them undone. I’m absolutelynotdoing that.

Words bleed together in front of me on the page of my notebook. “Um. Okay, I figured we would start with middle names. Mine is Lark.”

“Lark? Really?” He turns as much as possible in the seat that is half his size, considering me with interest. “Britta Lark Mayfield.”

A gust of warm wind travels through my middle. “My grandmother on my mom’s side was a bird-watcher. I can’t really remember her face, because it was usually hidden behind binoculars. Anyway, larks were her favorite species. She used to say they sing the sweetest song.” He doesn’t blink once as I’m speaking, almost like he doesn’t want to miss something. “What’s yours?”

“Wade,” he says.

“Is there some special significance to it?”

“Yeah.” He lounges back in the chair, resting his linked fingers on his stomach. “My parents met while their families were on separate vacations at Lake Louise. My dad was seventeen; my mom was sixteen. The first time he ever saw her, she was wading into the lake. He said that was the moment he started believing in magic. That’s where the middle name Wade comes from.”

My lungs have ceased to operate. “That is ... breathtaking.”

He nods to himself, like he’s reminiscing. “They still go to the lake once a year on vacation. He has this wall in his office covered in picture frames. They hold the same snapshot of my mother where she’s wading into the water in the same spot she did when she was sixteen, but she’s a year older in each one. Think there’s around forty of them last time I checked.”

There is so much love in his expression that it makes my chest uncomfortably heavy, and I have to look down at the notebook. Not that I’m seeing much of what is written there. “He obviously loves her very much. They must be the exception to the rule.”

My words cause him to tilt his head. “What is the rule?”

“Take your pick. What goes up must come down. All good things come to an end. What can go wrongwillgo wrong.”

A line is forming between his brows. “You’re implying relationships always flame out.”

“I’m notimplyinganything. Statistically speaking, they most often do. The chances of them ending badly are too high to take the risk.”

He shakes his head. “No.”

I wait for him to elaborate. He doesn’t.

“Just ... no?”

“No, I don’t agree with that. You can’t forgo the risk when the potential reward is so great. That’s why people do it. Fall in love and get married. Because if you get it right, you end up with forty pictures on your wall of the same woman. You have aperson.”

What does that churn just below my collarbone mean? Maybe I’m just not used to anyone being this passionate when speaking about relationships. Especially a man. Sumner is a different breed. “Not everyone needs a person.”

He concedes this with a nod. “Maybe that’s true. But even if you’re strong alone, when someone wades into your lake and you feel something ... if you choose to ignore it, maybe that strength is actually just something else in disguise.”

“Weakness?”

“Fear.”

SUMNER

Britta shoots to her feet, fumbling the notebook closed in her hands.

Dammit.I went too far.

I should have just agreed to disagree and stopped talking. My only excuse is that I’m frustrated. I’mmarriedto this girl, and she won’t even spend time alone with me. We don’t text. We don’t share meals. Nothing. And believe me, I’m well aware that she stated her terms up front. The relationship is a business arrangement only. I have no right to be irritated, because she is proceeding exactly as discussed.

Problem is, I’m even more obsessed with her than I was three months ago—and that is saying a lot, because I have been blind to anyone but Britta since the moment I saw her slide a foamy pint of beer down the bar in Sluggers. This is the first deep conversation we’ve had in agood while, because she has built a forty-story wall between us, and I’m absorbing the weight of it like an eager sponge ... and I went too far.

“Britta,” I say, lunging to my feet, the impulse to wrap my arms around her, keep her from leaving, blaring in my head. But in nothing but socks, I’m still a foot taller than her, and I remind myself that I’ll never use that size difference against her. Words.With women, problems need to be solved with words.My father taught me that lesson early and reiterated it throughout my life. It’s engraved in my psyche. “Will you please stay?”

“No, I remembered I ... um. I agreed to cover a shift—”

“Look at me.”

---