“A bartender. That sounds like a fun job,” she said a little too brightly.

“It has its moments.” Asa’s deadpan response was the last straw. The tension was as thick as a blanket and so heavy I felt like I couldn’t breathe through it anymore.

I pushed away from the table and rose to my feet with my hands on the edge. I swung my head back and forth between the two of them and asked, “What on earth is going on here?” I needed answers as to why he was acting so strange, needed them, like, yesterday.

Asa pushed his chair back.

I turned pleading eyes in his direction as he climbed to his feet. “Asa?” His name came out on a whisper as he made his way over to me. “What exactly am I missing here?”

He put his hand beneath the heavy fall of my hair on the back of my neck and bent down so that he could kiss me on the forehead. It felt like a good-bye, and when I looked up into his face I could see that the affable mask he had been wearing for dinner was gone and the granite stranger was back. All the questions I had about his odd behavior suddenly disappeared under sharp waves of pain as I saw what he was about to do laid out clearly in the depths of his dulled gaze.

“I can’t do this, Royal.” He brushed his lips along the ridge of my cheek and I saw the light go from dim to completely extinguished in his eyes. “No games, no lying, no more. I told you this was going to self-destruct even if I didn’t want it to.”

“What are you talking about?” I was so lost, so confused, and I could tell if he walked away from me right now he was doing it for good. “Can’t do what anymore?” I didn’t know if pressing him to meet my mom had been too much. Maybe it was too far in the realm of serious relationship for him to handle, but I was willing to grab his hand and run out of the town house with him if it would stop him from doing what he was about to do.

I went to grab his arm but he shook me off and headed out of the room toward the front door. I chased after him, angry and baffled beyond belief.

“Asa, what are you doing? Where are you going?” I mean we were in Littleton and I was the one that had driven.

He stopped at the front door and turned around to look at me. If heartbreak had an expression it would be the one that was dancing across his features at that very moment. “I never really thought I’d be able to sacrifice something for the good of someone else ever in my entire life. I guess I really have changed.”

I felt like I was going to cry. “I don’t understand. Is this because I asked you to meet my mom?” Maybe I had pushed him too far into the territory of what a real relationship looked like and this was his way of pushing back.

“I know you don’t understand and I hope you never do. You deserve better, Royal. You always did.”

He didn’t answer me about my mom, but I saw something hot spark in his eyes. I put a hand to my chest, where I felt like my heart was trying to fly out of my rib cage. I deserved better than what? Him? There was no such thing as far as I was concerned. “I’m in love with you.” My voice broke because he still pulled the door open and looked at me over his shoulder as he did it.

“I know you are. That’s why I’m walking out this door.” With that, he vanished out the front door and left me standing there stunned and dumbfounded.

I stared silently at the door for a solid ten minutes before my mom came to find me. When she did, I was rooted to the spot, shaking, and had fat, hot tears sliding silently down my face.

“Royal?” She put a hand on my shoulder and I jolted. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself because right then I needed a hug like I needed my next breath. When I looked at her, I swore guilt and relief were warring with each other on her face.

“Asa just left.” She nodded a little, understanding that I meant he left more than just this disastrous dinner.

“Didn’t he ride here with you?”

I turned to look at her, words stuck in my throat as emotion swirled and twisted inside of me so turbulent I felt like it was going to pull me apart. “He left me, Mom.” My voice cracked as I said it and she made a noise of sympathy and reached out to put a hand lightly on my shoulder.

“Well, we both know men do that, honey. They leave. Especially men that look like him that have the devil and temptation in their eyes.”

I frowned hard at her. I knew “perusing” Asa had a big probability of heartache attached to it, but for some unknown reason I was really starting to think we were going to beat the odds.

I cut my gaze toward my mother and asked her in a voice that was threatening to crack with sadness, “Why were you acting so weird around him tonight?” Everything inside of me was screaming at me to chase after him, to call him, to beg him to explain to me what in the hell was going on.