Indulgent Pleasures

She was halfway to the door when her cell rang and she paused, turning to look at the dresser and the vibrating and ringing phone on top of it. Catching her lower lip between her teeth she stood there for half a second, debating whether she should answer it or not. Her head screamed a resounding no. Her heart clamored with a loud yes.

Her heart won.

Leaping toward the dresser, she snatched up the phone and answered it with a breathless hello, praying she wasn’t too late and that it hadn’t already gone to voicemail.

Prayed it was Justin on the other line. She hadn’t had time to check out the caller ID.

“Stephanie, please don’t hang up.” His voice spilled out in a rush, relief and nerves warring within his tone.

She paused and didn’t say a word. She could only hear her accelerated breathing feathering across the line.

“Do you have a minute? Can I talk to you?”

“Okay.” It physically hurt to hear his voice, to know he was standing somewhere right now talking to her, thinking of her but not actually with her.

“I wanted to apologize for the way I acted on Sunday. I was wrong and I’m sorry.”

It felt good to hear his apology but not good enough. Nothing would ever be good enough anymore. “I’m sorry too, Justin.”

“Please, you have no reason to apologize. You told me the truth when you explained yourself and I wouldn’t even listen. I didn’t give you the chance you deserved and I feel like an asshole for that. I am an asshole.” He chuckled but he didn’t sound amused. No he sounded completely nerved out, much like how she felt.

“Listen, you reacted the way you did because you thought I lied to you and I understand that. I did lie to you. And I’m sorry but I can’t take back what happened. I can’t take back what I did to you. What’s done is done.”

“We can move past it, Stephanie.” His voice lowered, ragged and whispery and curling through her, making her limbs weak. “I’m willing to move past it just to have you back in my life.”

Stephanie briefly closed her eyes at his words. She wanted to believe him, really she did. But something else would eventually happen and he wouldn’t believe in her, believe in them yet again. He’d turn her away and tell her he couldn’t trust her. And she’d be right back where she started.

She was too afraid to even want to attempt that again.

“I don’t think we can move past it, Justin. That’s the problem.”

He was silent, so quiet that at first she thought he hung up but then he cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was incredulous.

“So it’s over. You don’t want me.”

Her eyes slid closed again and she slumped onto her bed, throwing her free arm across her forehead. “It’s not that. I just don’t think it can work out between us. Too much has happened.”

“Too much has happened,” he repeated, his voice flat.

“Yes and I think it’s all come between us, become too big to ignore. And we probably won’t be able to let it go. You won’t be able to let it go.”

“Stephanie.” His voice was filled with trembling emotion and she wanted to cry all over again. God, he sounded like he was about to cry as well. “I love you.”

“No, you love what we had. Or at least you really enjoyed it. I’m not sure if we were ever really in love in the first place. And I don’t think we’ll ever be able to get that back, what we had. I’m sorry, Justin.” She quietly hung up the phone, the sobs starting all over again and she covered her face with her hands.

She’d turned him down. Actually had been strong enough to turn him down and send him away.

Was it a mistake? Right now, it felt like it but she knew in the long run, it was for the best. Many bouts of hot sex did not a relationship make no matter what they’d believed prior to what happened. It would have ended anyway no matter what.

No matter what.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“You’re really going through with this.”

Justin nodded as he stared out at the field before him. The stadium was filled to capacity since the playoff game between San Francisco and Chicago was one of the more highly anticipated games of the season. The rowdy crowd roared their approval when a Miner just nailed a base hit.

His former assistant coach stood at his side, his arms crossed, his uniform-clad body covered by a navy blue Miners windbreaker. Justin owned the very same windbreaker and had given it to Stephanie to wear one night when she’d snuck out of his house to grab something she’d forgotten from her car.