Page 107 of Stepping Up to the Plate

I almost laugh at the term ‘home.’ My house has felt anything but with her gone. The smell of her on my sheets faded weeks ago. I kept everything where she left it, but it still wasn’t the same. I even used her ridiculously sweet syrups in my coffee to give me some sense of her.

“I couldn’t wait,” she responds. “I needed to see you now.”

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

“Yes-no. I don’t know.”

“Whatever it is you can tell me, sweet girl.”

She gazes at me with eyes full of mixed emotions. “I don’t want to be on a break anymore.”

My heart squeezes in my chest. Fuck. I thought I had more time to show her why we should stay together. The series has eaten up all my time but now that it’s over, I had plans. I need those days. She promised me six weeks and I want them all.

“I don’t want that,” I state.

Hurt and shock shadow her features before her expression steels. “You don’t?”

“No. We said six weeks, and it hasn’t even been five yet.”

“Oh,” she whispers. The pain is evident in her voice and cracking through the facade she erected. She’s upset I’m putting off her breaking up with me? That’s a weird response. “Okay. I’m sorry I bothered you. If you point me to the exit, I’ll let you get back to your workout.”

She risked breaking into the stadium to dump me and now she’s going to leave that easily? Something isn’t adding up here. Scrutinizing her more closely, I realize she has her face turned away from me. Movement catches my eye and I watch a lone tear trail down her cheek. That’s all it takes for me to forget our boundaries and pull her to me.

“Baby, what’s the matter?” I question wiping the tear away with my thumb. Another falls.

“Nothing.” She shakes her head. “I just thought this conversation would go differently, I guess. But I’m the one who asked for this break. You’re allowed to want to stick to the terms of it,” she mutters sadly.

I’m baffled by this reaction. “I need more time, sweet girl. I’m not ready to let you go.”

Her eyes shoot to mine. “Let me go?”

“Yeah. I’ve been preoccupied for the last four weeks, I wanted to spend the last two reminding you why we're perfect for each other,” I admit.

“You want to stay on a break to show me why we shouldn’t break up?” She inquires, scrunching up her nose, voice laced in confusion.

“Is that so wrong?”

A slow smile graces her lips and her arms drift to my forearms. My palms are still cupping her face. I can’t bring myself to let go. It feels like forever since I’ve touched her and I need the contact.

“What did you think I meant, when I said I wanted the break to be over?”

I roll my shoulders to attempt to loosen some tension before answering. “That you were done.”

“I am. Done being on a break.”

“Done with me,” I reiterate. She shakes her head as much as my hands allow.

“No,” she states. “Done being without you.”

My heart skips a beat. She wasn’t breaking up with me?

“If that’s what you want,” she adds, quickly.

“Yes!” I all but shout and she laughs as more tears spill down her rosy cheeks. “Of course, it is, baby. I never wanted to be on a break to begin with. I know you think we needed time to let our brains catch up with our hearts, but I didn’t. I’ve known what I wanted since the first time I kissed you: you.”

“I love you,” she says.

Now it’s my turn to smile. I pull her face into mine and seal our lips together. It’s not a sweet kiss, but it isn’t frantic, either. It’s full of all the words I haven’t been able to say the past few months. It’s full of love and devotion and promises of forever. When my lungs are seizing, I pull away to breathe and smirk in satisfaction at how her chest heaves, and the way she clutches my shirt.

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