I wanted to wage war with the universe in order to keep them both—to fix this for all of us. But no matter what path I chose, one of them would suffer.
And I would lose half of my heart.
“I promised I’d never leave you,” I whispered. “I swore that to you.”
She lifted a shaking hand to her mouth as though she could feel the promises I’d sealed against her lips. “You aren’t leaving me. I’m telling you to go.”
My lungs burned as I stood there, all the oxygen in the state of Georgia somehow evading me. “I love you.”
“I love you too, but…”
In the pause, I heard every single broken shard of her heart clatter on the floor at her feet.
“It’s just not the right time for us yet.”
Blood thundered in my ears. The urge to march around the bar and snatch her into my arms screamed so loud it was almost deafening, but that beautiful, crazy woman who had stolen the other half of my heart long before I’d ever realized it stopped me in my tracks.
“Go. Please, Hud. Just go.”
When the door clicked shut behind him, I buckled, covering my mouth as sobs rocked my entire body and I slid down to the floor.
My hands shook and I couldn’t breathe. It felt like the tears were seeping from my soul.
I cried and cried, and when I didn’t think I could cry anymore, I saw his anguish on the backs of my eyelids and I cried some more. Time passed in simultaneous slow motion and fast forward, every emotion imaginable slicing me to the core.
“I promised I’d never leave you,” echoed in my head, so I plugged my ears, trying to escape. But the sound of my heart, which beat only for him, was too loud to ever silence.
I sat there weeping for what could have been minutes just as easily as it could have been hours, but after a while, I realized that those tears weren’t just for me.
They were for Hudson.
For Jack.
For Cal.
And for my parents.
We were all losing an integral part of our lives.
I’d just gotten him back, and soon, he’d be gone for good.
I’d had to make him leave. Stubborn, beautiful, loyal Hudson would have stayed and fought me until the words faded into forever. When he made a promise, he kept it no matter the cost. He’d said he wouldn’t leave, but I couldn’t let him pay that price.
Not this time. It was finally my turn to be there for him. Whatever that meant and whatever it took. Hudson needed me, and finally—after all these years—I was strong enough to be by his side through hell. If it meant giving him peace about making an impossible decision and putting on a brave façade for what was right, then I’d be able to sleep at night.
But that night, I didn’t want to sleep alone.
There would be plenty of lonely nights when he left for Portland.
Suddenly, the face of the clock became my worst enemy. I had no idea how much time we had before he’d have to move, but now, the forever I’d hoped to have with him carried an expiration date.
I’d be damned if I let even a second that I could be in his arms pass me by again.
I wiped my face, grabbed my purse off the couch, and went to him.
His house was dark, but I let myself in, and as I walked back to his room, I left my clothes and my pride in the hall. When I got to his door, I saw him lying there with his arms folded under his head, staring at the ceiling. Through the faint light filtering in through the window, I noticed his jaw flex and his brow bunch.
It wasn’t anger.
It was pain.
It was fear.
It was heartache.
I knew all too well about those things, and even if I couldn’t fix a Goddamned thing, I couldn’t let him go through it alone.
He startled at seeing me, but he didn’t say a word, only opened the sheet beside him so I could climb in.
Like two puzzle pieces in the dark, we tangled our legs and arms around one another so tightly that I wasn’t sure where I ended and he began. It wasn’t about sex, although we were both naked and bared to each other. It was about a connection we hadn’t expected, a bond neither of us could deny. Even if the world tried to