Page 10 of It’s Me, but Different (Merriweather Sisters #3)

Esme

The air mattress makes a strange noise against the floor as Sloane tucks me in with the second blanket.

“Better like this?” she whispers, adjusting it around my shoulders.

“Perfect,” I assure her, though I'm convinced my heart has skipped several beats.

Despite the storm, the moonlight creates perhaps too intimate an atmosphere that makes everything seem like a dream. Or a nightmare, depending on how you look at it. I'm still not sure which of the two options I prefer.

I turn to the opposite side and give her my back. It's a pathetic defense, I know, but I need to put some kind of barrier between us. Even if it's something as fragile as changing position on a mattress that's barely three feet wide.

“Are you comfortable?” she murmurs while covering herself with the blanket too.

“Yes,” I lie. “I'm just very sleepy.”

Comfortable. Fuck, what a stupid word.

There's nothing comfortable about this situation.

I'm lying next to the woman who broke my heart eleven years ago.

We're alone in a restaurant on top of a mountain, surrounded by a fucking snowstorm.

And worst of all is that every fiber of my being is screaming for me to turn around and bite her clothes off.

I listen as her breathing gradually becomes deeper, and the sound transports me to those college nights when we used to fall asleep next to each other after studying late. Those times when the world was ours and the future was nothing more than a promise waiting to be fulfilled.

Now, the future seems more like shit. At least for me. The twins will need more and more time and money. I know very hard years await me.

I close my eyes and try to concentrate on more neutral sounds. On the wind that still lashes the windows. The slight hum of the heating system. Anything other than Sloane's breathing or the way the mattress sinks slightly toward her side.

But then, my left foot accidentally brushes her calf.

The contact is minimal, almost imperceptible, though it makes me too nervous. I tense immediately and pretend to be deeply asleep while withdrawing my leg as if I'd been burned.

Her breathing doesn't change, still installed in that deep, slow rhythm of sleep, but now I'm even more aware of every small movement. Every time she turns slightly. Every time she sighs in her dreams. Every time the mattress creaks under her weight.

It's torture.

Exquisite torture, because my level of arousal is starting to go through the roof.

The hours pass slowly. Every time I'm about to fall asleep, some sound or movement reminds me I'm next to Sloane, on a mattress where we barely fit together and dressed only in underwear and a t-shirt.

At three in the morning, I surrender to insomnia and simply lie looking at the ceiling. And it's those moments of absolute stillness that terrify me. When my mind begins to wander into dangerous territories.

I turn my neck, and she looks so peaceful next to me that it makes me want to kiss her. Fuck, she's beautiful. Her lips slightly parted, her hair tousled on the improvised pillow we made with our jackets. She seems so different from the hyper-competitive woman I knew in college.

Would it have worked? If she had chosen differently eleven years ago, would we have lasted as a couple?

The question hurts. Part of me, one I've tried to silence for years, still believes yes. That what we had was real, that it would have been worth making any sacrifice to try.

But my life now is very different.

I'm a mother. I'm a widow. I have responsibilities that go far beyond my own desires.

Ana Sofia and Theo have already lost their father.

How would they react if suddenly a woman appeared in our lives?

Would they see Sloane as someone trying to take Luis's place?

Or worse yet, as someone coming to steal their mother's attention?

And then there's work. The offer to be a partner at the Denver firm is everything I've dreamed of for years: the opportunity to establish myself professionally, to give my children the financial stability they deserve.

Could I ask them to move to Montana? To leave behind their friends, their school, the few physical memories they preserve of their father? All for the possibility, not the certainty, of trying something with Sloane?

Something that might not work…

It's too much. Too many changes, too many risks, too many unknowns.

My heart says one thing. My head says something entirely different.

And in between is me, paralyzed by indecision, watching the woman who could have been the love of my life sleep if circumstances had presented themselves differently.

That morning, I wake up with the strange sensation that something has changed during the night.

With sleep, it takes me a few seconds to process what feels different, until I realize there's a body pressing against my back. An arm around my waist. A hand dangerously close to my breasts.

Sloane is sleeping, spooning me like when we were in college.

And the worst part is it feels good. It feels natural.

Too natural.

And it's at that moment when I realize I'm aroused. Very aroused. That my body is responding to her closeness in a way I had completely forgotten. The heat spreads from my belly downward, and I have to bite my lip to keep from moaning when I slide a finger between my legs.

This can't be happening.

I try to move away carefully, to slip out of her embrace without waking her. I need to go to the bathroom and end this sensation, but I accidentally hit her arm.

“Mmm?” Sloane wakes up, opens her eyes lazily, and takes a few seconds to process our position.

When she realizes, she separates from me so fast she almost falls rolling off the mattress.

“Fuck, I'm sorry,” she apologizes, hiding her face in her hands. “I didn't want… really, I didn't realize my hand…”

“It's fine. You were asleep.”

“Yes, but… shit, Esme, I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. I swear I wasn't conscious that…”

“It's okay, really,” I whisper, taking her hand in mine to squeeze it.

“Coffee?” she asks, probably trying to forget what happened.

“That would be good,” I sigh.

But when she gets up, my heart skips several beats and I forget to breathe. The t-shirt she's wearing shows her nipples too much and when she stretches her arms upward to wake up, it reveals black lace panties that cover less than would be appropriate. Shit.

I look away immediately, as if I were a teenager whose parents caught her doing something forbidden. And judging by her smile and how she's blushed, I think Sloane noticed.

“The storm has passed,” I announce, trying to disguise while shifting my gaze to the window.

“It seems so. Though they'll probably have to check the cable car before we can go down. It'll take a while, it's very early,” she explains. “Look!” she whispers suddenly, approaching with two cups of freshly made coffee.

I turn to see what caught her attention, and I'm breathless.

“River always says the sunrise from The Peak is even better than the sunset, but I admit I'd never seen it. You know I have trouble getting up early,” Sloane confesses, positioning herself behind me.

And she's right, because watching the sunrise at 10,000 feet transcends any description. The sun bathes each of the mountains, starting with the most distant ones, and the entire valley spreads below us like a white and immaculate canvas.

“It's…”

“Perfect,” Sloane whispers near my ear.

“Do you remember that morning in Switzerland when you came with me to a competition? You said it was as if the entire universe was ours.”

“We were very young,” I remind her.

“We were happy,” she corrects. “Very happy… until I screwed up. And now I regret it every day.”

She presses against my back, and I can feel her breasts pressing through her t-shirt. I wish she had put on a bra, because I have to make an effort not to lean back and kiss her.

“Sloane…” I sigh, though I'm not sure if it's a warning or a plea.

She doesn't respond, but places her hands on the window on both sides of my body without touching me, and our reflection in the glass projects such an intimate image that I have to look away.

She stretches like a cat, pretending she's waking up, but we're both too aware of what those touches provoke in our bodies. Her breathing has become more erratic, and every time I feel her nipples harden against my back through the thin fabric of her t-shirt, I have to fight to keep from moaning.

It's a dangerous game. Too dangerous. We both know it. Every touch, every breath, every second we remain in this position brings us closer to a point of no return.

“Do you think the cable car will be ready?” I ask in a desperate attempt to break the spell.

“Mmm,” she murmurs against my neck and the sound vibrates like a caress.

She stretches again, pretending to want to reach her coffee cup that must be more than cold by now. She arches against my body, slow and sensual, and I have to gather all my willpower to stop her.

“Sloane…”

“What?”

“You know perfectly well what,” I respond, turning to look into her eyes.

Mistake.

Terrible mistake.

Because now we're face-to-face, separated by barely a few inches, and I know that desire in her gaze too well.

“Esme…” she whispers, slightly shifting her eyes toward my nipples.

“No. We can't.”

“Why not?” she asks, moving an inch closer and placing her hands on my waist.

“Because… because it's very complicated.”

“Life is complicated,” she responds. “But that doesn't mean it's not worth it.”

For a moment I allow myself to enjoy the contact. She draws me toward her with a tenderness that breaks my heart, and when I close my eyes, I imagine we're those twenty-year-old girls who swore eternal love.

But we're not.

“I have children, Sloane,” I whisper, opening my eyes suddenly. “They are my priority. I can't… I can't risk their stability for this.”

“For this?” she repeats with pain.

“I don't know,” I admit, letting out a long sigh. “I don't know what we are. I don't know what we could become either. And precisely because of that, I can't take the risk.”

“Okay, I understand,” she says, moving away from me slowly, though I can see she's hurt.

The sun has come up completely. It bathes the Silver Peaks mountains with a light that makes everything seem less real, as if we were characters in a dream that's about to end.

And maybe we are.

Because when the phone rings, when they announce the cable car is working again, when we return to the hotel, this will become another “what would have happened if…?” to add to our list.

Locked in the bathroom so she can't see me cry, I break inside.

It's too painful to realize that my feelings for Sloane haven't disappeared. It's as if they had just been sleeping, waiting in case she appeared in my life again someday.

That day has arrived, and now I don't know what to do.

My love for Luis was very different from what I felt for Sloane. Not better or worse, simply different. With him it was about building something solid, a predictable and stable life where we could raise our children. It was a mature, calm love, based on respect and the goals we shared.

With Sloane it was always fire. Passion, intensity, that feeling that together we could conquer the world or make it burn completely. It was an almost adolescent love in the best sense.

But now I'm a very different woman. I can't afford the luxury of choosing love. Not when I have two small children who depend on me for everything.

I hit the wall and cry for everything I've lost. For Luis, for the dreams we shared that disappeared after his death. For Sloane, for what we were and what we could have been. For myself, for the woman I used to be before responsibility and pain changed me forever.

And I cry when I realize something terrible: that I'm not going to accept either of the two opportunities presented to me.

Not the job offer in Denver, not the possibility of having something with Sloane.

I'll choose the safety of the known, of keeping things just as they are.

And I'll do it only because it's easier.

Because changing, making any kind of change, requires courage I'm no longer sure I possess.

And that's what breaks my heart more than anything else.

Because it means I've let fear win. That I've chosen survival over life.

And I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive myself for it.