He blew out a breath, not looking at her but at her hands resting in her lap. She’d just about twisted her own fingers into knots during that speech. “Wow.”

“I know that was blunt, but now’s a good time to get it all out there, right? I think we started out with some preconceived notions about each other. If we know from the start we’ll never give each other what we need, why go on? Relationships that drag on for years and finally break up because of indecision on the part of one or the other…I don’t want that. That seems like such a waste to me.”

“Marriages do the same thing. The vows aren’t the finish line. How many married couples do you know who are miserable, and you look at them and think, ‘Damn, just get divorced already’? Because I know quite a few. I think you’re limiting yourself. Even if I can’t see those things in my future now, maybe I will after a year. Or two. Maybe something will happen in your life, and you won’t see those things anymore. People evolve.”

“I guess I’m not that cynical yet. I’m still convinced when it happens to me, it’ll be happily ever after.”

“Well…sure, you deserve that.”

Silence again, so heavy with unspoken words. Like he said, she deserved it; maybe everyone did, but could he give it to her? Could she give up everything she’d ever dreamed of and believed in to be with him? To be a couple of feathers floating in the wind together with no foreseeable destination…

She looked at him, allowing herself to stare for probably the first time since he came in. Grief etched heavy lines around his mouth. He looked older, a little gaunt, and his all-black attire only lent to the shadows under his eyes. She missed his devil-may-care grin. She missed everything about him.

“You should get to your room and try to sleep,” she said softly. “Don’t think about me right now. We’ll both step back. You’re still grieving.”

Staring at the floor, he nodded and stood. He didn’t look in her eyes as he leaned over and brushed a kiss across her forehead, lingering an endless moment before pulling away. “Without you, I’m grieving over two instead of one.”

As she watched him walk out the door, it was all she could do not to run after him.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

Brian glanced over at her, then returned his gaze to the road. Despite the late night, he’d been ready to go bright and early, meeting her in the hotel parking lot a little before eight. He looked as if he’d slept fine.

What a bust this had been.

“Taking a break? I think so. I mean, it hurts, I can attest to that. But it’s necessary sometimes. You either realize that you can’t live without them or that you were f**king crazy for ever trying to live with them.”

“Do you believe him? Honestly. Forget the guy-code BS and tell me if what he said made any sense.”

“We’re talking about Raina here. Yes. It made perfect sense.”

She laughed without mirth. “I guess so. Did you talk to him this morning?”

“No. I did late last night. He was going to sleep it off and head for home later today.”

“He’ll be okay, right?”

“He’ll be fine. He’s been through worse.”

“I don’t doubt it. You’ll look out for him?”

He nodded once and tugged his cap lower over his eyes. “Always.”

“Good.”

“Candace said you never called her last night.”

Sighing, she rubbed at the headache that had never quite left her overnight. “I couldn’t. There was no way I could’ve talked about it, even with her.”

“Just so you know, I didn’t tell her anything. She asked how it went, and I only said it didn’t go so well, and you were upset. You can tell her what you want.”

“Keeping it in your vault, huh?”

He made a motion as if he were flicking a key away from his lips. “In the vault.”

“Thank you, Brian. And I’m sorry more than ever now that you got dragged into this.”

“Hey, I hope it works out for you guys. I really do.”

She watched as the green landscape rolled past outside her window. Spring was everywhere, it seemed, except inside her soul. Winter still festered there, bleak and unrelenting. “I’m sure it will.” But she didn’t hear a single note of confidence in her voice. She couldn’t even muster a fake one.

Days went by. He didn’t call. Even if it was the very thing she’d asked for, it weighed on her heart to think of him alone in the house where he had memories of his parents and his grandmother, all of them gone now. Memories of a sister who wasn’t around for him, and a brother who’d ripped his heart out and apparently still didn’t give a damn about it.

So many times she found herself driving by his house like a psycho stalker. Like Raina, she often thought with a smirk. But where Raina was probably building shrines and doing voodoo love spells or something, Macy was just trying to work up the courage to stop. To get out, to walk up and ring his doorbell. To put her arms around him. She never could quite muster it.

For all she knew, her speech about needing a family someday had scared him away more than anything else. It wasn’t exactly what a girl should spout when she was trying to snag a man, and she still wondered what possessed her to do it. Just a burning need to lay her soul out there for him, to let him make a decision about her, knowing everything he thought he knew about her was wrong.

She had some decisions to make herself. Like if she believed him about Raina.

If it even freaking mattered about Raina. Somehow, the anger at him wasn’t there anymore. It was all at that girl. At that annoying little pest who would probably always be lurking around, waiting for her chance to resurface with a new strike against them. Macy could just see it now. Nuclear war, and all that would be left were cockroaches and Raina.

She couldn’t go to Dermamania anymore, either. Every time she thought of stopping by to visit Candace, Seth was there. Even the convenient excuse to go in and see him wasn’t empowering enough. She was terrified to face him. What if he acted like nothing had ever happened between them? What if she was only kidding herself?

And why did she miss that damn place so much now that it was off-limits to her?

“Macy, just come by and talk to him!” Candace pleaded with her almost two weeks after the blow up in Austin. She’d never admitted to her friend what had really happened. In fact, she hadn’t let herself talk about Seth with Candace at all, mainly to avoid hearing those very words come out of Candace’s mouth. But Macy’s own vault had been getting full enough to burst; she’d had to ease the pressure.

“Maybe. Not anytime soon.”

“You know how you always like to tell me when I’m doing something stupid?”

“Yes. But I don’t need to hear—”

“Nuh-uh. You don’t get off that easy. You’re being stupid.”

“The thing is I was always wrong in your case.”

“Look, I’ve been where you are. So please take it from me how bad you’re screwing up right now.”

Her heart fell. “Why? He’s not…like, starting to see someone else, is he?”