The Reluctant Romantics Box Set (The Fall, The Mind, The Heart)

“I don’t know. I dropped it when you charged me,” I said with a chuckle.

“Looks like we have both lost our touch,” he murmured as he sat up next to me.

“Speak for yourself, Martin. I’m still sharp as a tack.”

“And just as painful as one in my ass,” he whispered as he looked at my bare shoulder. Suddenly aware of how close he was, I began to move when his words stopped me.

“I stopped in college, my first year.”

“I never did ask you why you did.”

“I didn’t have my coach,” he said softly, his eyes still on my neck and shoulder. “It wasn’t the same without you. I didn’t care if I won. I didn’t have my girl to win for anymore.”

“Oh, no, Martin you don’t get to blame me for that one,” I whispered back as he inched forward his eyes intent on my skin. “You were racing long before we met.”

“It wasn’t fun anymore,” he whispered even lower.

I averted my gaze as I smiled ruefully. “I will never know how—” My words were cut short as soft lips pressed against my shoulder. I turned to study those lips as they tasted my skin. Dean’s lashes fluttered as his kiss drifted slightly higher, and I pulled away just as he leaned in further. My movement seemed to sober him only slightly as he looked at me with desire so intense my sex pulsed.

“You can’t do that,” I said softly.

“Dallas—”

“Take me home, Dean. Please, just take me home.”

The ride back to Dallas seemed longer than the ride out. Dean hadn’t said more than a few words to me since we left the track.

“Dean,” I said, looking his way, his dash lights making his solemn face more heartbreaking.

“I deserve it. I deserve all of this shit. I’m the one who left my family, left you, so don’t fucking pity me.”

“I’m still here. I still care a great deal—”

“But you love him,” he reminded me, taking his eyes off the road for a second to glance my way.

“And you were going to marry her!” I said impatiently. “You come home after seven years and expect everything to be the way it was? That’s ridiculous. You expect too much. We can’t just go back. It doesn’t work that way. Things aren’t the same.”

“I get it and they clearly aren’t,” he argued. “My father is dead, my mother is losing her fucking mind, and the woman I was supposed to marry has moved on. I get it. I left. I’ll deal with it.”

“Well, we had to,” I said, looking out the window, not caring about his reaction.

“I regret it every day, but that changes nothing,” he said as he sped up, changing lanes to take my exit.

Neither did crying myself to sleep.

I exhaled deeply, needing to get the next part out before he thought differently.

“None of this was your fault. Parents grow old and die, mothers get sick. You went to college and started your life. Every kid does it. You did absolutely nothing wrong.”

“Then why does it feel like I did?” he asked on a whisper. “Why do I feel like everything I did was for nothing?”

“I can’t…I don’t know how to answer that,” I said quietly. He pulled onto my street then parked. We sat in his car in silence for a few minutes.

I spoke first. “You know if you need me again, I will be happy to help.”

“I won’t,” he said. “But thanks for the offer.” I got out of the car, turning back to retrieve my purse. He grabbed my arm when I began to pick it up, and I looked across at him, the ache in my chest growing, and the urge to wrap myself around him unbearable. For the first time since he returned, I felt like I was staring at my best friend again—the man I was closest to, the man who I’d loved more than anything in the world, and the man who ripped my heart apart and left me completely broken.

“Let’s just go back to the beginning,” he said, pulling me into a hug. I wrapped my arms around him, planting my knee on his passenger seat and nodded in the crook of his neck. He wanted to be friends. And though it shouldn’t have, my heart sank.