Her eyes gloss over with unshed emotion, but I walk away before she has the chance to blink. If she blinks, I will not be able to leave without catching every tear. I don’t think Josh wants to emerge from the men’s room seeing me touch the woman he seems to like. Maybe love. I don’t know if he loves her. It’s nearly impossible to not love her. But he can’t love her like I do, and that sucks for him. And that sucks for her. She might make it her life’s mission to hate me, but she’ll fail because the only thing she hates is her love for me.
We made it twelve years. Every day I felt like a thief on the run. I stole the girl—her heart, her babies, her hand in marriage.
Chapter Seven
THEN
Tatum’s boss dropped by the house to let someone in to measure for window coverings. His subtle throat clearing stopped our motions.
Our naked-on-someone-else’s-mattress motions.
When I glanced over my shoulder, he stared at me with a blank, almost bored expression, shoulder casually pressed against the doorframe like he’d been watching for quite some time.
“Shit! Ryan! Oh my god!” Tatum hugged her body to mine, using me as a shield so her boss didn’t see her naked.
“I think it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. You no longer have a job. Now get dressed and see yourselves out right this minute.”
We were over. I knew it. Fate landed its boot right in my ass, reminding me that I can’t steal the girl and get away with it. I’d like to say I didn’t think about losing access to fifty-yard-line Chiefs tickets, but I did. I couldn’t help it.
When Ryan continued to stare at my naked backside hiding Tatum, I narrowed my eyes. “You can fire her, but you sure as hell don’t get to see her naked. So fuck off while we get dressed.” It was as if I had to make sure she had no chance of salvaging her job (or the Chiefs tickets). If his knee-jerk reaction of firing her might have had a chance of being overturned, I obliterated it.
Ryan turned and sauntered down the hall toward the stairs. When I returned my attention to Tatum hidden under me, she shoved my chest and flew out of the bed, plucking her clothes off the floor and donning them in record time.
“Tatum …”
She shook her head, chin tipped toward her chest, trembling fingers buttoning her blouse.
“I’m sorry.”
She continued to shake her head. “Don’t say anything unless you’re going to make things right. Can you do that?” Her head snapped up. “Can you tell me what I’m supposed to do now? I have rent. Car insurance. I’m screwed.”
“You could …” I paused, not really knowing what I wanted to say to her.
“I could what, Emmett? Move in with you?” She grunted a laugh. “With your parents? With my parents? I’m sure they’ll be super welcoming after they find out why I was fired. And even if they let me move back in with them, I don’t want to do that. So now I have to find another job, and there’s no way I’ll find one that pays as much as I’m making now … was making.”
I buttoned and zipped my jeans. “I have money in savings. A lot actually. It’s one of the perks of working full-time and living at home.”
“I don’t want your charity.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” I stepped toward her and helped her with her shirt.
She batted away my hands. I frowned. “The buttons are crooked.”
On a heavy sigh that felt like the verge of a total emotional breakdown, she tugged at the buttons. I gently pushed her hands away and fixed her shirt.
“You said you wanted to travel. You said you’ve never been outside of the Midwest. My parents have an RV. They never use it. I say we just go. Take six months … maybe longer … and we drive. We see. We live. And we figure shit out later—when we’re ready to come back home.”
Her rich brown gaze shifted to me. “You can’t be serious? You still have a job. And who just packs up and leaves without any plans for where they’re going or what they’re doing?”
I framed her face with my hands. “We do.”
She blinked and blinked.
“Tell me to take a hike. Tell me you were never really mine. Or … say yes.”
I loved her. I loved being young and dumb with her. I loved that we had our whole lives ahead of us. And I loved that everything I felt about her and life with her in it started with those two words … I love.
A few more blinks later, she whispered, “We drive.”
I smiled. “We see.”
She grinned. “We live.”
I nodded. “And we figure shit out later.”