Page 67 of Catch You


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The last thing I expect to find when I reach the top is another figure sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of the building, staring out at the inky night sea beyond.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I’ll just …” I trail off as he turns toward me. “Fletch?”

He narrows his eyes at me as he pushes to stand.

“Corey, Milo’s cousin,” I offer when I see him trying to place me.

“Oh, yeah,” he says like he has a fucking clue. I’m sure he meets hundreds of people on a weekly basis; he has no reason to remember me. “Having a rough night?”

“Something like that. I’m sorry for intruding, I’ll leave you to it.”

“It’s fine. I can share.” He lifts a bottle of Macallan and suddenly things feel a little lighter. He passes it over and I take a sip from the bottle, foregoing a glass. “Let’s shoot the shit, see if we can solve the world’s problems.”

Moving before he changes his mind, I dash back down the stairs.

“So, what has you up here, wanting to outrun the world?” he asks after pouring me a very generous amount of whisky.

A laugh falls from my lips.

“I’ll take that as it being a woman?”

“When isn’t it, man?” A self-deprecating laugh falls from my lips. If only it were that simple.

“You’ve got me there.”

“You in the doghouse?”

He lifts his glass. “Guilty,” Fletch jokes, draining his own glass in one. “Hit me with it then, man.”

I think of Harlow and where I should start. “I met this woman,” I confess quietly.

“I see.”

“But it’s more than just her. It’s …” I scrub my hand down my face as the need to say more bubbles up inside me. I’ve haven’t spoken about this with anyone. But I trust Fletch. “I lost people. People I’ve loved and … I’m not sure I have it in me to go through all of that again.”

Fletch watches me closely as I keep my eyes locked on the ocean before us.

“I get that,” he finally murmurs. “As painful as it is that you’ve lost them, can you imagine your life without having them in it?”

“No, never. They’ve made me who I am. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about them.”

“Life is fucking hard, man. Relationships are complicated, and love even more so. Heartbreak is inevitable. But the joys …” He trails off, and I know he’s thinking about Reese. I’ve only ever known them as I couple, but it would be naive of me to think their story was easy and without a few bumps in the road.

“Do I worry about losing Reese? Yeah, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. I’m away from her for half of the year, most of the time on the other side of the country. I’ve seen what my lifestyle can do to relationships. I’ve seen more than my fair share of teammates ripped apart when the woman in their life couldn’t hack it. But when I’m with her … fuck, it’s all so worth it.

“I just have to trust in her, trust in us. She’s it for me, and quite frankly, I’d give it all up just to be with her if I had to.”

“It’s going to take some time to get my head around all of this. To work through the past.”

“That’s okay. The right woman will understand. She’ll support you. Hell, she’ll help. You just have to trust her to stand by your side through it all.”

“How will I know?”

He shrugs one shoulder, a smile pulling at one side of his mouth.

“You just know, man.” He thumps his chest with his fist, right above his heart. “Listen to this.”

“I thought it was broken,” I mutter.