Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,252

playing with each other on her lap. “I’m not saying this right. This isn’t coming out right. I am just so… This isn’t what I thought it was going to be. This isn’t how I ever planned it.”

“It?”

“You. This. Us.”

He drew in a long breath. “There’s an us?”

Anguish knifed through her at the thought that she might have already lost him. “I… want there to be.” However, she knew the dagger she wielded, knew even as she held it there that it could severe the fragile thread between them forever. “I just don’t know about…”

There it was. The sword falling, slicing right through all of his hopes and dreams.

Greg slumped all the way forward and anchored his elbows on his knees. He’d known this was coming, known it would end like this if he was ever stupid enough to say something. He wanted to cry out to God, ask Him to fix this, to make her feel about him the way he felt about her, but that was selfish. She had her own life, and it was her decision.

“I’m not saying no,” she said, her words like butterflies alighting in the spring.

But it didn’t feel like that. It felt hard and heavy and scary.

“I’m not, Greg. I’m not.” Bending to mirror him, her eyes burrowed into the side of his head. “Look at me, please.”

It wasn’t easy, but he dragged himself upright and his gaze slipped over to hers.

“Look, I’m not sure where this is going,” she said. “This is all so new to me, and it’s not what I was expecting. But at the same time, I see everything so differently now. Way different than I ever did before. Before it was all about impressing everybody and getting them to like me. Now…” Her eyes traveled up his face and back down again just before her hand slipped over to cover his.

He flinched at that but then fell still.

That hand. She hadn’t noticed it before. How strong it was. How steady. How trustworthy, gentle, and solid. Taking it into her other hand, she picked his arm up and slid hers under and around his until she was twined with him and had her head on his shoulder. Their hands were holding together, and as hard to fathom as that was, she had never felt his like that in hers. It was an easy fit that felt so undeniably right. Perfect really.

“So what then?” he asked, and she heard the underlying pain. “What are we? Friends? Just friends? More than friends but not really? What?”

As much as Taylor wasn’t ready to commit to that just yet, she knew he needed more than an open-ended arrangement that left him dangling off the ledge. The problem was, she’d done this before, the commitment thing, and it had never worked out in the end. It scared her to death to think about losing him like that, and right now, she was so confused, she didn’t have an answer for any of it.

“It’s late,” she finally said, “and I really want to do whatever this is right—for both of us. I don’t want to set you up to get hurt anymore, but I really need at least a little time to make sense of all this. Is that okay?”

Is that okay?

It was such a simple question. Why was the answer about to tear him apart?

“Yeah.” He breathed the syllable in and down as it shredded everything in its wake.

And then they just sat there. Together. Kind of. Under the cross. Twined together but still separate. Wondering what came next and how that would even be decided. It was anybody’s guess.

Epilogue

“I’m sorry,” Pastor Dave said, coming in so quietly that neither of them heard him until he was standing right there.

They both jerked up straight, and their twist came untied. Still, without him thinking about it, Greg’s arm came up behind her. If the pastor was mad, this was his fault not hers.

“It’s after one.” Pastor Dave checked his watch as if to verify that. “I don’t mean to break this up, but…”

Pushing to standing, Greg shadowed her as she came up too, looking shaky and shaken.

“We’re really sorry,” Greg said. “We didn’t mean…”

“No. No need to apologize,” Pastor Dave said. His gaze went up to the cross. “It’s a good place to come and work things out.”

“Yeah, it is,” Greg agreed. Rocking backward away from her because she was so close, he put his head down. He really did want to talk to Pastor