Stars Over Alaska (Wild River #4) - Jennifer Snow Page 0,85
would be good. Give her time to clear her head without him in her space—in her peripheral vision at all times, smelling his cologne that she swore he’d only started wearing since they’d had sex. It was a scent she knew she’d soon be missing.
She heard the front door close and fell backward onto the bed. Grabbing a pillow, she put it over her face and muffled a scream into it. She kicked her legs against the bed and cursed herself for being so damn stubborn all the time.
“You were really going to let me go without saying goodbye? That’s a dick move.” Levi’s slightly teasing tone had an element of hurt when he reappeared in the bedroom doorway.
Embarrassed, but happy to have a do-over, Leslie jumped up from the bed and hurried into his arms. She hugged him tight and he kissed the top of her head.
She wanted to stay there. Right there. Forever. Or until she got her heart and head sorted out. But she couldn’t rely on him anymore and she couldn’t keep messing with his heart. “Stay safe,” she whispered.
“You too,” he whispered back, squeezing her one more time before releasing her and heading out of the station cabin...for real this time.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EIGHT HOURS AND four rom-coms later, Leslie was tapping out. As the credits rolled on the last movie, she reached for the television remote and turned it off. Next to her, Selena was wiping a tear off her cheek, her knees pulled into her chest, looking completely wrecked by the onscreen love.
Unreal. The woman had seen this movie eighteen times and she starred in these things, yet she was still sobbing over a happy ending?
Leslie felt nothing. In the last eight hours, she’d effectively closed herself off again. Years of practice had immediately come to her rescue before the pain and disappointment could fully envelop her. Maybe there was something wrong with her, something broken inside that she wasn’t sure how to fix. Or was it that she didn’t want to fix it because that would mean being open and vulnerable?
“Ready to change your opinion on these movies now?” Selena asked, a smug look on her face.
Was she serious? Selena thought this marathon she’d forced Leslie to endure would actually result in some type of enlightenment. “Absolutely not,” she said.
“What? Why?”
“Because they are completely anti-feminist, that’s why. In every one of these movies, it’s been the woman giving up something for love. Career, family, her home, her country... How about the dude giving something up for a change?”
“He opens his heart to the heroine.”
“Pfft...so what? Why is that enough for the guy, but not the woman? Why isn’t he expected to make major life changes?”
Selena looked ready to argue, but she paused. “Huh... I guess I didn’t really notice that before. But you do have a point.”
Now Leslie looked smug. “Ready to change your opinion of them now?”
“Not completely. I see your point, but what you’re not acknowledging is that the woman who claimed to be happy with her life, her career, whatever, wasn’t truly happy. And meeting the hero and falling for him is what taught her that. In the end, she ultimately got it all.”
“No one gets it all. It’s unrealistic.” Leslie looked into the popcorn bowl between them, but only unpopped kernels sat at the bottom. She licked her finger and dipped it into the salt.
“That’s not true. My parents are a perfect example of having it all. They have careers they love, they are still in love with each other, they are happy.”
Well, money tended to help happiness along. The Hudsons were rich and beautiful; to not be happy would mean there was no way they could ever be satisfied. But Leslie kept her comments to herself. They were nice people. “Well, I’m sure you’ll get it all too,” she said. She wasn’t being sarcastic but Selena thought she was.
She reached across the couch and punched Leslie in the shoulder. “Don’t be so jaded all the time.”
Leslie sighed. Maybe she was jaded, but she had good reason. She’d thought she was getting, well, maybe not a perfect life with Dawson, but close enough, and that was ripped away, but she wasn’t going to get into that. “I meant it,” she said. “You have a career you love, a wonderful, supportive family and there’s no shortage of men who would love to cater to your every whim for the rest of your life.”