couch, patted Fred on his head, and gathered his things.
“I’ll see you soon,” he said, and kissed her forehead.
Another of those wrecked smiles, one that almost had him staying, but he knew that wouldn’t show her anything, wouldn’t prove anything. She needed to understand that he was going to come back. “Okay.”
He’d show her that.
Because not once did he think she wouldn’t be worth fighting for.
Chapter Twenty-One
Stef
He left, the door clicking closed behind him.
Why had she ruined the loveliness, the good time they’d been having?
She’d pushed, and he’d left.
Oh, she knew that he’d promised to come back, but he wouldn’t. She’d seen that look on his face, and it was familiar. It was something she’d seen over and over again. Plus, who would return to a woman who argued with him about something at hour . . . what? Thirty-six or so? Two dates in and already making demands. Waking him up in the middle of the night with her anxiety. Making him the only breakfast she could—both because she sucked at cooking and because all she’d had to offer were bagels and her cinnamon cream cheese and coffee. If she’d had time to shop, she could have made him muffins, but . . .
She sighed.
Add in a dog tagging along on dates, anxiety nightmares, picking a fight before nine in the morning.
The ideal woman she was.
“Okay, Yoda,” she muttered, forcing herself to get up and lock the door, her heart squeezing when she saw that he’d turned the bolt on the knob, so it was already locked.
Dammit.
She should have hung on a little longer.
But all she could think was that it was better now than when she was even more involved.
When it would hurt more.
So maybe she did know why she’d taken the first opportunity to push him away, to pull back and protect herself. For all her talk of clinging to him, to absorbing as much of him as she possibly could, in the end, she’d chosen self-preservation.
Close down.
Protect whatever shred of herself that was left.
Probably the smartest thing she’d ever done, even if she hated the idea of never seeing Ben again.
Losing Chance had broken something in her. Her parents trying to cope with his suicide, his mental illness, and distancing themselves from her had broken something else. And then Jeremy. Who she’d thought was a fucking savior, that white knight on the horse sweeping in to save her.
She didn’t have it in her.
She’d wanted to be brave and soak in every moment.
But when Ben had gotten that familiar look on his face, she’d known she couldn’t.
Stef had snapped so quickly back into herself, a tape measure whirling back into its case, the metal ricocheting and biting at her fingers just before fully closing. It hurt, but it belonged there, just like her.
She’d had her fun, and it was done.
Fuck, that hurt.
But she only had herself to blame.
“Enough,” she whispered, going to the fridge and getting on her meal prep for the week. She could slow cook chicken—plunk some olive oil, salt, and pepper into the Crock-Pot, throw in the chicken, and forget about it for eight hours.
Then shred it, throw it into some bagged salad, and be done with it.
Not a gourmet cook, but she could make a few edible things, and luckily, she didn’t mind eating the same thing day in and out.
She went through the motions of meal prepping for the week, of cleaning her house and giving Fred a bath—well, Fred got cleaned up first and was turned out into the back yard to run off his after-bath zoomies, and then she cleaned the house, including the trail of wet pawprints and hair that stretched from the bathroom to the slider.
What she didn’t do was allow her mind to wander back to Ben.
Which meant she thought about him every minute.
And as the hours went by, the small tendril of hope she’d been holding on to, even knowing it was stupid as hell, faded.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
She’d forget about Ben and move on, and all would be good.
“Right,” she muttered, not believing herself, not even for a moment.
But she’d be okay, eventually.
Sighing, knowing it was the truth, she walked to the slider, intending to let Fred back in. It was getting late, and she needed to make dinner, get ready for work the next day, to figure out some way to not be sad.
Because she wasn’t really ready for Heidi to see that she was pining for a man she couldn’t have—
A knock at