I can’t breathe. Somehow this moment feels like my ultimate fantasy and my worst nightmare, all rolled into one confusing, heartbreaking moment. Because now I know I want so much more.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Why not?” he says, his voice urgent as he steps closer. “I’ve enjoyed these past few weeks, and I know you have, too. You said yourself, you want someone to come home to at the end of the night, and . . . hell, why can’t that someone be me? We know we’d fight, but we also know the make-up sex would be outstanding. We respect each other, and neither of us would have to pretend that we’re the next great love story—”
“I can’t,” I repeat, more desperately this time.
Matt frowns in concern at my tone, reaching out a hand toward me. “It’s okay; I know it’s sudden. You need time to think, and—”
“No.” I shake my head and close my eyes. “I mean, yes, it is sudden, but that’s not why I’m saying no.”
When I open my eyes again, his expression is shuttered and unreadable. “Why are you saying no?”
I take a deep breath. “Because you don’t love me.”
Matt’s eyes widen slightly in shock. “Well . . . no. I mean . . . I don’t really do that. But neither do you.”
I bite my bottom lip so hard my eyes water. Actually, no. My eyes are watering for another reason entirely. This hurts.
“Sabrina.” His tone is sharp. “You don’t love me. Do you?”
I take a deep breath as I realize I owe it to him—and to myself—to be completely honest.
Forcing a smile, I lift my shoulders and let them fall. “Apparently, I do. And knowing what that feels like now, I don’t think I can do marriage the companionship-only way I always imagined. I want . . . more. I want a real marriage. And I don’t think I can settle for less.”
29
MATT
Sunday Night, October 8
Sabrina’s statement lingers in the air like the aftermath of an explosion, my shock rendering me speechless.
When I finally do manage words, they’re hardly eloquent. “What?”
She flinches. “I know. I was surprised, too.”
I don’t move; I can only stare. “Sabrina, I thought—”
“It’s not like I’m joining a cult, Cannon,” she says, some of her usual sass returning.
“Might as well be.” The words are cold and callous, and I don’t mean them to be, not really. But to say she’s caught me off guard here is an understatement. I can barely think clearly, much less speak eloquently.
Her blue eyes seem to blaze at me as she comes closer. “You’re terrified.”
Damn straight.
“I’m confused. Just a few days ago, we were on the same page. You yourself said you wanted to avoid the emotional, messy stuff.”
“I know I did! And it’s precisely because of moments like this,” she says, sounding slightly frustrated. “Because this”—she gestures between us—“sucks.”
“Exactly,” I say, reaching out and grasping her shoulders. “So let it pass. It’s just the proximity messing with your head. We can go back to the way we were, just friends who enjoy each other’s company. Or we can go back to fighting.”
Just don’t leave me. Don’t walk away.
“Look, Matt.” She lifts her shoulders and eases away. “I’m not asking anything of you. I know I changed it up. You don’t feel the same, and that’s . . . f-fine.”
She stutters over the word as though it pains her, then takes a deep breath and continues.
“I get it. I’m not exactly thrilled, either, but my feelings are there, and they’re complicated, and they’re not going away anytime soon. You don’t want a wife who loves you, and I don’t want a husband who doesn’t love me. Where does that leave us?”
I close my eyes and try to sort out the mess of thoughts going through my head. “I don’t know.”
“Well I do,” she says matter-of-factly, as though she didn’t just drop the L-word up in here and destroy every good thing we had going on. “We need some space.”
“I don’t want some damned space!” I shout, opening my eyes again. “I want . . . I want . . .”
“What?” she says.
You.
I try to tell her out loud, but the words don’t come. It’s as though they’re buried deep, lodged in my throat.
“I want things back the way they were,” I say instead, hating the pleading note in my voice but unable to hold it back.
She says nothing.
I’m losing her. I know I’m losing her, and yet the only way of keeping her is to take that idiotic plunge, to go over the edge with her, and risk everything.
I won’t do it. She matters too much.
“Sabrina,” I say quietly, closing the distance between us. “You know I care about you . . .”
Her face twists. “Don’t. Please don’t do that.”
I clench my fists in impatience. “Don’t what, speak the truth?”
“Not if the truth involves some sort of placating but. You care about me, but. You want to keep sleeping with me, but. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I want what we have without the buts. I want what Ian and Lara have. What I suspect The Sams have. I want someone to be with me not just because it’s convenient and we’re well suited but because he can’t stand the thought of not being with me.”
I swallow, thinking of my parents. Thinking of how they made all those promises to each other, how they were supposedly once like Ian and Lara, but none of it lasted.
I think of how they are now. Indifferent to each other.
I won’t do that to Sabrina. I won’t do that to us.
But neither can I bear to see her unhappy. If this is what she needs . . .
I reach out and gently cup her face, my thumbs drifting over her cheeks. “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want,” I say quietly. “But if you want to chase the fairy-tale ending, I won’t stand in your way.”
Her face crumples for a moment, but she recovers almost immediately, giving a quick nod. “Thank you. I still need some space, though, Matt. I can’t fall in love with someone else as long as I’m in love with you.”
I feel her words like a knife in my chest.
But I nod, knowing what she means. No more casual sex when it suits us. No more verbal foreplay disguised as arguments. And for me, no fellow realist—no more safety in Sabrina’s shared knowledge that love destroys relationships, not fosters it.
“Still friends?” she says, sounding more vulnerable than I’ve ever heard her.
My gut clenches at the word, somehow both vitally important and not nearly enough. “Of course,” I whisper, setting my forehead to hers. “Of course.”
Our arms slowly find their way around each other, and there’s a desperation to the goodbye hug—not forever, not for good, but goodbye to the way we were. The way we’ve become.
I press a lingering kiss to her temple. “Be happy.”
I hear her swallow, then she nods.
I pull back, intending to give her my standard cocky smile, but I can’t summon it forth. Not when I see the unshed tears in her eyes.
Her hands drop from my waist, and I release her with a backward step.
I walk to her front door, knowing she won’t stop me. She wants love. I want her to have it.
And I wish like hell I had it in me to give it.
30
SABRINA
Monday Lunch, October 16
“So, are we going to talk about it, or are you going to keep pretending everything’s cool?”
I look at Ian over my Diet Coke. “You mandated this meeting. You have something say, say it.”
It’s Monday afternoon, a little more than a week since Matt basically proposed marriage.
Sans love.
I’m trying really hard not to think about it. Or him.
But Ian’s making it difficult. Because as much as I know that he’s my best friend and loves me like a sister, he also loves Matt like a brother.
It’s hard to share a meal with this man without thinking of the man.
Ian pushes aside his plate and, crossing both arms on the table, studies me with his piercing blue eyes. I can’t help but compare them to another pair of blue eyes. Ian’s are ice-blue, slightly almond-shaped. Matt’s eyes are dark blue, the ocean on a sunny day, wide and bright and . . .
I suck in a sharp intake of breath as the pain hits. Again. I know it’ll pass. Eventually.
But damn, this sucks.