Page 78 of Some Sort of Love (Happy Crazy Love 3)
On the other side of the breakfast counter from him—which wasn’t an accident—I took a breath. “I don’t know if everything is OK. I need you to tell me.”
“What do you mean?”
I tucked my hair behind my ears. “For the last month, I’ve been asking to meet Scotty, and you keep putting it off. I’m starting to feel like you’re delaying the introduction because you don’t have the feelings I do about us.”
“That’s not true,” he said, coming around the counter and taking my hands. “Jillian, I love you. I’m crazy about you. You know I am. I just want you all to myself for a while.”
Tears filled my eyes, and I knew my plan to remain calm and rational was futile. “I do think you love me, Levi. If I didn’t, this would be so much easier. We could call it quits, and I’d go nurse my broken heart.”
“Jill—”
“I think you love me and you’re just afraid.”
His brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re using your son as an excuse not to let me into your life because you’re scared.”
He dropped my hands. “What the fuck, Jillian? I’ve told you why I haven’t introduced you yet.”
“I know. And those reasons made sense for a time. But if you really feel about me the way you say you do—if you really love me—you’d let me into his life too, because he’s everything to you. You’d give me the chance to love you both.”
“You said you understood,” he said, his jaw clenching, fingers flexing. “You knew from the beginning I had to put his needs first.”
“Stop blaming him!” I shouted. “This isn’t about Scotty’s needs, and you know it! This is about you being unwilling to let me in because you’re scared of something—and I don’t even know what! Do you think I won’t be patient with him? Do you think I might not love you if I see you make a mistake? Do you think I’ll try to be his mother? Or your mother?” I put a hand on my chest. “I’m not interested in criticizing you or judging you for the parenting choices you make. I want to be part of your life on a real level, not just a romantic interlude.”
Levi let me finish, but I could see his hands curling at his sides like they did when he felt attacked and on the defensive. Those fucking hands—I couldn’t even look at them. They never failed to arouse me, and that was the last thing I needed to feel right now.
“I told you,” he said, his tone bitter, “I told you from the start I couldn’t be what you wanted. I told you I couldn’t give all of me.”
“I don’t need all of you in that way,” I said, wiping my eyes. God, was he not listening? “I don’t need all your time or attention or love. But I want to see all of you. I want to know all of you. I want to love all of you. Why won’t you let me?”
“I don’t know, OK? I don’t fucking know!” He shook his head, his eyes closing. “I knew it. I knew I couldn’t do this right. I told you I was bad at balance.”
“You don’t need better balance!” I threw my hands up. “Don’t you understand? You need to stop being one person over here and another over there! You only need to be one man, one whole man, and realize that you have enough love for both of us! It’s not a zero-sum game!”
He struggled for words and retreated back into self-doubt. “Jillian, I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved any woman, but I don’t know how to do what you’re asking. I knew I’d be a disappointment to you. I’ve always said you deserve more than I could give you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t deserve more than you can give me, Levi. I deserve more than you’re willing to give me. And you know what? A few months ago, maybe I’d have been content to live like this, loving you from the outside. Looking in. But you gave me a taste of what it feels like to feel worthy of being loved, to feel like I’m enough. I want more of that.”
He sighed, his dark eyes sad, but his chin rising stubbornly. “So that’s it? You’re walking away?”
My throat closed as his walls went up. “If I have to. Let me in, Levi. Let me in, or let me go.”
His breath left him in an angry huff. “I always knew you would go.”
I crossed my arms and called his bluff. “Are you forcing me to leave now because you’re afraid I’ll leave later?” And then it dawned on me, the source of the f
ear. God, how had I not seen it sooner? “I’m not Tara, Levi. Stop letting fear of the future and guilt from the past prevent you from being happy. You’ve done it long enough!”
He reacted as if I’d slapped him, his eyes blazing with anger, his lips compressing to a thin line, his back snapping straight—and I knew I’d touched a nerve. Oh fuck. I shouldn’t have said that.
“Say something!” I yelled, my heart hammering. I’m losing him. I’m losing him.
But he said nothing. He backed away from me, grabbed his jacket from the back of the stool, and took off down the stairs.
A few seconds later, I heard my front door slam.
“Fuck you, you coward!” I screamed, my hands squeezing into fists too. I stood there seething for a moment, then burst into tears, weeping into my hands while I leaned against the breakfast counter for support, right next to the framed picture of my sisters and me that he’d given me for my birthday.
