Sawyer (Carolina Reapers 2)

“See!” She pointed a finger at me.

“So maybe I sleep here during the off-season, or hell, maybe you hire someone to close more than twice a week. Or maybe you even decide to move in with me so we can see each other in the sunlight every once in a while.” I shrugged.

She scoffed, but there was so much conflict in her eyes that I couldn’t even begin to guess at her emotions. “Move in? You think I want to move into that chunk of suburbia?”

“One, I think you actually like that house, and two, it’s better than never leaving work. Jesus, Echo, you literally live at work. And I know this place is your dream, but it can’t be your only dream.”

“Why not?”

“You’re seriously going to tell me that at twenty-three years old, you have everything you’ve ever dreamed of?”

“The big NHL star is going to use that line on me?” She shook her head. “You’re twenty-three too, remember?”

“And this isn’t my only dream! Sure, it was the biggest one, but I’m hanging around the guys, and I’m realizing that maybe it’s about the bigger picture, too. It’s about kicking ass on the ice, and coming home to the woman you love. It’s about not just building a career, but building a life!”

“How can you have a life when you’re either at the rink, on a plane, with me, or at your mom’s? Sawyer, you’re so busy fixing everyone else’s life that you hardly have one of your own, so please don’t lecture me on where I choose to live mine.”

I sucked in a breath.

“Mom is moving to Virginia after the finals are over,” I said slowly. “I’m allowed to reexamine my life now that I have options for the first time.”

Her face fell. “I didn’t mean it that way. The way you take care of your mom is so amazing.”

“No, it’s not. It’s what a son does. It’s what you would have done for your dad if you had the chance. It’s not some huge feat or something to be praised for. You show up for the people you love. You make the sacrifice because, in the end, it’s only the love that matters.”

Something changed in her expression, and suddenly she felt further away than the night I’d met her.

“Look, if we can just figure out how to keep Chad from trying to fuck with your life and mine, this will be fine,” I assured her. “Everything will be fine. All this shit doesn’t need to be sorted out in an instant.”

She shook her head and looked away. “It won’t be fine.”

My stomach tightened. “Yeah, it will. We’ll figure it out.”

“No, we won’t,” she said slowly, and brought her eyes back to mine. “You and I...what were we thinking?”

“That we love each other,” I answered instantly.

“Since when is that ever enough?” Her voice rose, and she backed farther away as she started pacing. “We should have kept it at no strings. Why didn’t we keep it at no strings?”

“Because I love you! And you love me!” Heat flushed up my neck.

“So what?” She stopped and threw her arms out. “Look what love has done to us! My ex is so jealous that he nearly ended your career, and it wasn’t just you he could have hurt. He could have taken down your whole team. Do you want that on your head?”

“Echo—”

“No!” She put her hand out when I started to move forward. “Think about Lukas and Axel. About Logan and Connell. Hell, even Cannon. You really think they’d accept, ‘But I love her’ as the reason they lost the Stanley Cup?”

I swallowed. She was right in that one regard. Chad could have damaged way more people than just me.

“You think you didn’t lose a game here and there because of exhaustion with my hours? Sawyer, we are a train wreck waiting to happen. Hell, that’s already happening. We have to stop this before we end up hurting everyone around us, too.”

Bile rose as my muscles locked, as if in protest to what she was saying.

“We’re not breaking up because we had a fight,” I told her slowly.

“We’re not breaking up because we were never together,” she countered, squaring her shoulders. “We agreed on sex. Our emotions got involved. Our agreement is over.”

I looked down to see if I was bleeding because it felt like she’d just sliced me to the core. “You...you can’t just decide that shit got complicated and end this.”

“But I can.” That hard-ass exterior I now knew she used as a mask clicked back into place. “It takes two people to be in a relationship, and I’m pulling out.”

God, the arch of her neck, the way she tilted her head in that haughty way...I almost would have believed we meant nothing to her if not for the stark pain in her eyes.