Only One Love (Only One 7)

"Break up is a stretch." I shrug. "Were we really together?" My heart sinks and then rises to my throat.

She stares at me from her side of the counter. "Fuck you, Wilson," she says, and the back of my neck burns. "You don’t get to pretend you’re an asshole.”

"Trust me, sweetheart." I smirk. "I’m one hundred percent an asshole, and I never have to pretend."

"Are you finished?" She doesn’t move from her spot. Her eyes are a darker blue, never leaving mine. I take her in, and every single time I see her, she gets even more beautiful.

"Finished with what?" I ask her.

"Finished trying to pretend you don’t care." She calls me out on my bullshit. "If you aren’t …" She pulls out the stool at the counter and sits down. "Just let me know when you're done and when we can really have a conversation."

"There is no conversation to have!” I shout, angry that she is so fucking calm and levelheaded right now. Instead of freaking out and screaming, she’s calm, cool, and collected. "We had fun, and we have to part ways."

"Did you talk to my father?" She puts her hands in front of her and folds them together. "Or my brother?"

"No." I shake my head. "Your brother didn’t say a word to me the whole game." The team made sure we never sat next to each other or were on the same line. "And I never saw your father." Every single time I sat on the bench, I looked up, hoping she would be there, but instead, I saw her father staring straight at me. I couldn’t see his face, but I could imagine that he looked at me with hatred. Little did he know I hated myself for putting her in this situation.

"Good," she says. "So tell me why you want me gone?" I start to open my mouth, but she stops me, leaning back. "And if you give me this song and dance about how it was just fun and all that shit, I’m going to come over there and throat punch you." I want to smirk at that last comment.

"Fine," I huff, knowing she will see through all the bullshit anyway. "It’s the only fucking thing I can do to get you away from this scandal."

"What fucking scandal?" She throws up her hand.

"You were fucking naked on television!" I shout at her. "What more do you want from me?" I point at myself. "For my whole life, I’ve worried about one person and one person only because well, no one gave a shit to be honest. But now …" I take a deep breath. "Now I have to make sure you are okay before I am. So there you have it."

She pushes away from the counter and walks around it to my side, and I know that if she touches me, all this fighting will be down the drain. If she touches me, I’ll forget all about being the good guy for once and then just be the selfish bastard that I am. "Maybe in a couple of months, we can try again."

"That’s not going to work for me." She stands in front of me now, not touching me. "Because one, I hate when someone tells me that I can’t do something." She smiles. "It just pushes me to do it harder. And two." She takes a step closer to me, and I don’t move. I don’t even think I breathe. "I don’t want to try again later when now is working for us." She lifts her hand to the corner of my mouth. Her finger softly touches me, and my stomach sinks and then rises. "I like this whole dating thing," she says. "I like this whole spending time together."

"Frances," I plead, but I don’t know if the plea is for her to go or to stay.

"Wilson." She says my name in the same plea that I said hers. "Tell me that you don’t want me here, and I’ll go," she says. "Tell me that this is just a game to you, and you’ll never have to see me again." Tell her, my head shouts at me, but my heart, fuck, my heart is pounding so hard in my chest. "That’s all you have to do." She rubs my nose with hers. "Is tell me that you don’t want this, and I’ll leave you alone." My hand comes out to hold her hip. "So what’s it going to be?"

"Why can’t you just listen for once?"

"What fun is that?" She laughs and then lowers her lips to mine. "So …" She kisses me softly. "What’s it going to be?"

"This was supposed to go the complete other way,” I tell her the truth. "You were supposed to be pissed and not rational." I swallow as my other hand comes up to rub her cheek. "You were supposed to come in here and call me names and walk away."