Page 40 of Mountain Pine
There’s no way this is really real. Fear shoots ice through my veins. Did we just screw up our lifelong friendship for a few Os?
Conner blows out a long exhale and that just adds to my worry. We’ve just crossed the friendship line. Blown the wall I put between us all those years ago to smithereens.
“You tell me,” he finally says.
“I…” There’s nothing sensible left in my head. It’s infuriating and frustrating. Hopping out of bed, I grab my robe to cover myself. “I don’t think I know how to do this, Con.”
He’s on me in a flash. “Hey. Whoa. What the fuck, Taylor?”
There’s hurt in his eyes and anger in his voice.
“I’m sorry, I just…” Running my hands through my hair my gaze drops to his collarbone because I can’t look in his big beautiful brown eyes when I say this. “I’ve loved you for so long. If this is just one of your self-sabotage episodes, I can’t be part of it.”
Even though I know it’s already too late.
“Self-sabotage episodes?” he repeats, and maaaaannn he sounds insulted. “Taylor, you’re not a hole.”
My stomach twists.
“If I wanted to a quick fuck, I could have just—”
“Finish that sentence and I’m going to put you in the freezer.”
He closes his mouth even though he has no goddamn clue what that even means. He just knows my threats aren’t to be taken lightly.
“This is real,” he says cautiously. “For me… this is real. This is all I’ve ever wanted, Taylor. I understand that you’re scared because I am too. We’ve crossed a line there’s no coming back from.”
I hug myself and take a step back. My heart thuds in my throat. “What if it doesn’t work out?”
This man doesn’t hesitate to say, “I’ll leave.” Conner forces me to look up at him. “I’ll leave and never come back to Bear Creek.”
My galloping heart slams into a brick wall. “What?”
That’s going too far. He can’t just leave.
“It would be best,” he mumbles, and his voice deepens with a heaviness that makes me sad. “There’s no way I can have you for a minute and then never again. It would kill me, Taylor. To see you move on and be with someone…anyone elseafter me…” He shakes his head. “It’s not in me to stay for that torment. I can’t do it anymore.”
I can’t do it anymore.
All this time we’ve been crazy for each other and too afraid to take a chance. Too afraid to mess things up. He dates women who don’t live in town and never brings them around me or Nick or anyone else as far as I know. And I’ve been sporadically dating anyone who will ask because I’m lonely and trying to find someone who fits in my heart, knowing each guy Ichoose is nowhere close to my type.
Talk about self-sabotage.
And Conner’s had to watch me go on dates for years. He’s the one I cried to when a boyfriend hurt my feelings. He’s the one I called when I got stood up. He’s the one who protected me from the worst of the bullies and the shittiest of boyfriends…
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, wiping my tears away. “It’s just stupid stuff.”
“Can’t be stupid if it’s making you cry.” Conner drops his book bag on the ground and sits next to me against the fence. The football team is practicing behind us, and I really should leave, but I can’t seem to summon the guts.
“Come on, Taylor. If you don’t tell me, I’ll just pester you non-stop until you cave.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“So?”
The way he says it makes me feel like I’m making a bigger deal than I should about it. He also waits for me to talk and anytime I tell him what’s bothering me, he never laughs about it. Conner somehow takes all the uncomfortableness away from my situations.
