Page 136 of Only Between Us

“So I guess that’s it, then. You stay and I go, and that’s it.” I jump to my feet, jostling Brooks in the process. I throw open the closet and start tossing things into my open suitcase with shaking fingers.

There’s no folding, no care, no fucking common sense.

“Siena, stop.”

He’s blurry when he turns me around. The tears must be back. “I need to pack. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“You just told me you love me and in the same breath you’re telling me it’s over?”

I wipe my tears to get a better look at him, but now he looks… pissed off. I’m not even sure he’s breathing.

He taps at his phone. Lifts it to his ear.

“What are you doing?”

Brooks doesn’t answer, but doesn’t take his eyes off me, either. I hear the ringtone on the other end, over and over until it cuts out.

“Josh? We’re telling them no.”

Chapter47Siena

I leap for the phone, but Brooks dodges my hand.

“Brooks, stop.”

He stares right back, and if it weren’t for the sound of an angry voice on the other end of the line, I’d think he was bluffing. “I really don’t give a fuck, Josh. That’s my decision—”

I snatch away the phone. “Josh, ignore all that. He’ll call you back later.” I end the call before Brooks can do more damage. All he does is glare. “There’s no way you’ll quit for me.”

“How can you even say that? As though there’s a reality that exists where I wouldn’t quiteverythingto be with you. You need me to live in Baycrest? I’ll do it. You want me to fly home to you every free second I have between games just to glimpse you from the tarmac before having to fly right back? I’ll do it. You want me to move you across the country with me?I will do it.”

“That came out wrong—I mean that youcan’tquit. I could never forgive myself, and you’ve worked too hard to give up playing now. We always…” My chin quivers again, damn these tears. “We knew this was how it would be. We talked about it. I was honest that I can’t move, and that I’m not happy with any scenario that has us onopposite ends of the country. You’re telling me you’d be okay only being with me in your off-season?”

Brooks paces across the room, more agitated than I’ve ever seen him. I sit on the bed again, because I’m exhausted.

The emotional burden of waiting for this day has been exhausting, and now that it’s here, I’m depleted. I want to lie in bed with blankets over my head and Brooks at my side and pretend we’re somewhere and sometime else.

When Brooks comes to a stop in front of me, it’s with a final calming breath. Still, I can see he’s struggling—fighting for his innate optimism, now that he’s faced with the reality of the very thing he’s refused to accept despite the conversations we’ve had.

“I’m absolutely not okay with only being with you in my off-season. I want you out here with me. I want to buy us a house on the water for all our midnight skinny-dips. I want to spoil you rotten, buy you two of every kind of boat there is. I want the privilege of seeing your hair turn silver, lines form around your eyes, and I want our kids making fun of us for being a dirty old couple who still can’t keep their hands off each other sixty years later.That’swhat I’m okay with.”

Deal. I want it. Give it to me.

Anything less and I’d be an empty, bitter old woman on my deathbed.

“I want that, too. But that doesn’t make it possible. It doesn’t erase responsibility and duty, or the love and respect I have for the people who gave me my first real home.” I watch him tip back his head to stare up at the ceiling. He takes a deep breath and holds it. It’s the same way he’d coached me to hold back tears on that cliffside weeks before. “Brooks, I’m so sorry. Hurting you was the last thing I wanted. It’s why I fought this so hard. Ending this was never going to be easy.”

With pink eyes, Brooks scoops me off the bed and onto his lap on the floor. He runs his thumbs over my cheeks, tucks my hair behindmy ears. “Don’t apologize. You’re right—you were completely clear from the start, and I live with a bad case of delusion. Should probably get that looked at.” He’s making light of it to spare my feelings and that only hurts worse. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Pip.”

Something clicks in my head. “You haven’t called mePipin a long time.”

One single corner of his mouth tugs in a half-hearted smile. “Delusion. In my head, you weren’t going to be a Pippen much longer.”

My chest caves in on itself.

Brooks dots kisses over my face, my temple, cheeks, the tip of my nose, searching for permission until I take a handful of his hair and pull him in for the real thing.

I kiss him hard. Every lick of my tongue is anI’m sorry. Every nip to his lip anI wish things were different. Brooks combs his fingers through my hair, all the way through like he’s trying to savor the feel of it before doubling back to anchor my head and deepen the kiss.