“Fucking hell,” he groans, shaking his head. “This is why I don’t want to talk about this. We don’t even know where we’ll be in a couple months. Why are we deciding this now?”
I stare at his profile for a long time. My heart is beating out of control, and I want to shake him. Doesn’t he see that he means the world to me? That I don’t want to have a life without him in it? Doesn’t he realize I love him? The only reason I haven’t said it is because I don’t want to come off as some stupid girl in love with someone who is leaving. But if he agreed we could try to stay together, or if he took this seriously, then I would tell him. I would scream it in his face.
But then, it’s things like this that make me think he doesn’t love me.
“Fine,” I say, dropping his hand and turning in my seat.
He tries to grab my hand, but I tuck them under my arm. “Sof, don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad.”
“Oh, you’re pissed,” he laughs, shaking his head. “I don’t want to fight on Christmas. I don’t want to fight at all, really, and I don’t understand why you’re so upset over something we honestly don’t even have to worry about till I get picked up. Just let it be. Let us be.”
I don’t say anything. I sit there, staring out the window as I fight back my tears. I’m not a crier, but when I get pissed, they sometimes find a way out.
When the truck suddenly goes off the road, I hold on and look over at him wildly. “What in the hell are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer me. He just puts the truck in park and gets out. I watch him, my eyes wide and my mouth parted as he walks around the hood, coming to my door. He pulls it open with force, and before I can say anything, he takes me by the waist and pulls me into his arms. I try to fight him off, but he not only outweighs me, he towers over me too. I press my hands into his chest, glaring at him, but he isn’t letting me go.
“Can you stop so I can tell you something?”
I glare. “What?”
“Do you think I like talking, or even thinking, about leaving you? ’Cause I don’t. It guts me, Sofia.”
“It does me too, which is why I’m trying to make a plan.”
“But your plan has flaws, baby,” he stresses, his eyes burning into mine. “It seems like a grand idea—call when we can, stay true to each other. Believe me, I could do it, but—”
“So can I. I would never cheat on you.”
“I know, but that’s not fair to you. If I get picked up, I’ll never live here again, not until I retire. So what does that mean for us? Do you see what I mean? I don’t want to stress about that right now. I want to kiss you, make love to you, and hold you in my arms and think we’re great,” he says, his eyes full of such sorrow it takes my breath away.
“But—”
“If the time comes, then I will say goodbye. It won’t be easy, and I’m warning you now, I’ll probably be as dramatic as Amelia, but I’ll leave.”
My lip starts to quiver, and my eyes burn with tears as I stare into his. That doesn’t sound like something I want or even could handle. Before I can say that though, his words bring me back to him. “And every day I am away from you, I will pray and hope that one day I’ll be able to come back to you. That some lucky bastard hasn’t already stolen you from me by the time I can get to you. But the great thing about that being in the future is I don’t have to worry about it now. Right now, I get to worry about making you happy and getting in your pants every chance I get.”
I know he says the last part to make me smile, and damn it, I do. “I don’t want any of that. I just want you.”
His arms tighten around me. “And I just want you.”
“This is stupid.”
His lips curve. “I agree. Wanna break up and hate each other?”
“No,” I say sadly as I look down at his chest.
He drops his head lower so he can look into my eyes. “Good. I wasn’t going to let you.” He presses his nose into mine, squishing it hard until, finally, I smile once more. “I don’t want to upset you.”
“I know.”
“And believe me, when I told you you were going to ruin me for the female gender, I wasn’t just feeding you a line. It’s the truth.”
My heart skips a beat or six as I stare into his blue eyes. “Then what do we do?”
His eyes are so sad as he gazes into mine. “We enjoy what time we have, and then we figure out our new normal.”
“I don’t want a new normal. I like our normal-normal,” I say with a pout, and his lips quirk.
“Me too, but hey,” he says, moving his face closer to mine. “Whenever I am in town, I’ll call you, and we can hook up.”
When he waggles his brows at me, I laugh. “Oh, so I’ll be your Tennessee booty call?”
He snorts before he nods eagerly. “Yes, and I am so making you a shirt that says that.”
I smack him as our laughter mingles into one sound. I let out a thoughtful sigh as I stare into his eyes. I don’t want to fight with him. I don’t want to worry about a future that doesn’t involve him, because I’ll go crazy. I’ll hate myself for ruining what we have now. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine, as long as you wear a shirt that says ‘Sofia’s booty call.’”
“No way,” he says, his eyes staring into mine. “It’ll say ‘Sofia’s man.’”
My heart aches in my chest as he smiles. “Lies. You’ll move on.”
He scoffs at that, shaking his head. “No, remember? I’m coming back for you. But knowing my luck, you’ll have moved on.”
“I won’t,” I say without even the slightest hesitation. I wrap my arms around his neck, holding him tightly to me. “I’ll get a dog or a cat or a plant for companionship, and I’ll learn how to get myself off.”
I can feel him smile against my neck before kissing it softly. “Please let me help you learn.”
My face breaks into a grin, but soon the tears are rolling down my cheeks. I thought I had such a great plan, but I didn’t, and he’s right. We knew going into this that we only had a short time together. Problem is, my heart wasn’t listening to that. Or even my head. No part of me was listening because I was under the spell of Ryan’s beautiful and stunning gaze.
For the next few moments, we don’t move. I hug him hard, loving the feel of him against me as his lips trail kisses up my neck and back down again. I hate myself for resisting him the way I did, because if I hadn’t, I would have had more time to memorize the feel of him against me. I think I’ll be doing that a lot from now on. Because when he’s gone, blowing the world away with his talent in the NHL and living his dream, I want to be able to remember everything about this moment.
The moment I knew I’d never love another man the way I love Ryan.