Biker's Virgin

"Are you in a hurry?" she asked, slipping her purse off her shoulder.

"Nope. Not at all. Why?" I asked.

"I don't really want you to leave," she said after a pause. I walked over to her.

"I'll stay as long as you want me to."

"Would you leave if I asked you to do that?" There was about two feet between us.

"If you asked me to, yeah," I said, wondering where this was going. "Do you want me to go?"

"No, but you have to, don't you?"

"What? I don't have to be anywhere tonight, Ron."

"Not right now, I mean later. After you go to the combine and someone gives you a contract, and you have to relocate to play on their team," she said.

"Ron, the combine only lasts a week. Nothing after that is set in stone. I can't say any of that is going to happen. Chances are that it won't."

"Yes it will, Roman, you're a fantastic player," she said, a little annoyed like it hurt her to say it.

"Even if something did, what's wrong with that?"

"You would leave. You wouldn't be able to turn down the offer."

"I wouldn't just leave. I'd talk to you about it first. We’d figure something out."

"Just like last time?" she snapped.

"Last time was a mistake. I know I didn't do the right thing. I paid for that for a whole year, and I'm still paying for it now."

"The end result would still be the same, whether we talked or not. You'd still leave me, and I don't want that. Not again." She turned her back to me.

"Ron. Ron, please, look at me," I said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Am I wrong?" she asked, refusing to turn around.

"I used to think that leaving had to mean the end of a relationship, too. I was wrong, Ron. Even if I did end up having to leave, we could work something out." Her head fell forward and her shoulders shook. Shit. I circled her body to face her again. She was wiping tears from her eyes.

"Where was this a year ago?" she said sadly.

I felt like shit. She had cried that time, too, but that had been because I had told her it was over and I didn't love her anymore.

"I know I fucked up. I should have come to you instead of making that decision for us."

"I felt so stupid. Like I thought we were doing so

well, but then you did that and then suddenly you were gone." I was holding her before I could stop myself. She was stiff and small in my arms. She didn't fight me, though. She let me comfort her through her tears.

"I wasn't thinking. You were there for me and instead of talking to you, I took matters into my own hands and fucked everything up."

"You really hurt me, Roman," she said. Her tears were soaking into my shirt, and her voice was muffled against my chest. I squeezed her tight, kissing the top of her head.

"And, I hate myself for it, Ron. I hate what I did to you and what it did to us."

"I can't go through that twice," she said quietly. She pushed away from my chest, eyes trained on the ground. "If this is going to happen, I have to step away, Roman. If we say our goodbyes now, we-"

"No," I said, cupping her face so she looked up at me.