I freeze and listen to three more heartbeats. Then I step back. He’s slow to let me go, his hands trailing down my arms as I slip away. “You said friendship, Sawyer.”
“Because you were so mad that first night. I could read you well enough to change my plan.”
“What change? What plan?” I feel suddenly cool even though the air is warm.
“We made a deal, Tab. Do you remember? We’re both single, and we’re turning thirty. Those were the terms.”
“The marriage pact?” I laugh. “The terms of a deal we made when we were dumb kids who thought forty was old?”
“I’m not kidding,” he says quietly.
I sway like the dock tilted, but Sawyer stands as solid as ever.What is happening?
He steps so close I have to look up to meet his eyes. He rests his hand against my cheek, his thumb brushing against my cheekbone softer than the light lake breeze. “Tab. We sealed it with a kiss. Don't you think it's time to collect?"
Chapter 23
Run.Stay.PushSawyerin the lake and see if it clears his head. These are my options.
“Is it that crazy?” he asks when I’ve stared at him in dumbfounded silence for at least ten seconds.
“A hundred percent,” I say without hesitation, stepping back so his hand drifts down, away from my face.
He smiles. “Even after two amazing days together? We click. We connect like we never broke up. Something about us works like it doesn’t with anyone else. At least for me. You don’t feel it?”
I do, but I’m not handing him that ammunition. “I still know you well enough to sense you were going to ask for something more, and here we are.”
I should have found a way to cut him off sooner, to save him from the ask so I could save myself from having to give this rejection. “I’m so relieved we’ve patched up things enough to share Ben and Natalie again. Let’s leave it there.”
He tilts his head and studies me. “You’re running.”
I blink at him and point to my feet. “I’m right here.”
He shakes his head. “The look in your eyes is exactly how I felt that morning I snuck out early. I regretted it. If I promise you that staying will save us from wasting another nine years, will you believe me?”
I can feel myself want to, and it makes me angry. I spent too long putting him in the past to weaken because his attention salves my twenty-year-old self’s pride. It makes me snappish. “I can’t believe you thought you could lure me back here and spring that stupid backup plan on me.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“It’ssostupid. You know whatIlooked like that morning nine years ago? I was standing at the end of this dock puking.Puking, Sawyer. So much vomit.” I feel a rising sense of hysteria at the absurdity of this. My anxiety is spiraling. I don’t care. “I bet I fed this whole lake full of fish on that vomit. Yes, that’s gross,” I almost yell when he winces.
My fingers bunch and twist my sweatshirt hem. “That’s how bad I felt. And I bet those fish had babies, and those had babies, and there are great-great-great-great-grandfish of those vomit-fed trout that day, swimming around with puke DNA from that one time when I was totally abandoned by you on this exact stupid dock!”
“Whoa, whoa, Tab, hey, it’s okay.” He reaches out and grasps my upper arms, gently but firmly rubbing them like I’m cold. “I hear you. It’s okay.”
I’m shaking, I realize. I hate this. And I hate that his rhythmic strokes are actually calming me.
“Breathe,” he says. “In slow, out slow.”
I glare at him, but my breaths sync with the arm rubs. “I’m fine,” I say several seconds later.
“You sure?” He’s still rubbing my arms, his hands warm through the fabric of my sweatshirt.
I nod and step back. “And I don’t think there are any puke fish in the lake.”
He eyes me cautiously. “You good?”
I meet his eyes, specifically because he couldn’t do it that last morning. “I’m not marrying you. I’m not even going to date you. You’re right to guess that not taking you to Creekville was a clue. I wasn’t consciously thinking about it at the time. But I’m figuring it out now, why the idea felt wrong to me.”
