My body moved before my brain fully registered the words. I scrambled over his legs as he sat up, his arms open and reaching for me. I climbed right into his lap, planting my face against his chest as I all but fused my body to his.
Nick’s reaction was immediate. He buried one hand in my messy ponytail, and my knees bent on either side of me as his other arm circled my waist, curving his body into mine. It was like he was caging himself around me, and those tears that had welled up spilled free. I almost couldn’t believe there were any left in me, but the sobs rose again, and they were so powerful they shook my body—shook his as he held on.
“That’s good. That’s good,” he kept saying, over and over. “It’s all right not to be okay. I’m not okay either. I’m not.”
And he wasn’t. I could feel his body trembling, and as I curled my fingers around the hair at the nape of his neck, guilt and anguish tangled together, forming a poisonous knot. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Stephanie, baby, please don’t apologize.” His voice did that breaking thing again, killing me. “What happened isn’t your fault. You know that, right? This wasn’t your fault.”
I wasn’t sure if I was apologizing for losing the baby or for how I treated him during it. Or maybe I was apologizing for both things.
And then he said it. “You’re breaking my heart, Stephanie. Stop apologizing. It’s ripping me apart.”
You’re going to break his heart.
My grip on him tightened. It wasn’t losing the baby. It wasn’t even the way I had acted. It was this. Damn. Katie really was psychic.
We held on, becoming each other’s anchor, and we shared that pain. Time became something that happened in the background. I had no idea how much of it passed before I opened my eyes and the only tears left were those that clung to my eyelashes. His arms had stopped trembling and his chin rested atop my head as one hand trailed up and down my back, the caress soothing and grounding.
“Are you . . . not working?” I asked, wincing at the scratchiness of my voice and the lameness of my question.
“Jax gave me the weekend off, and Kira is with my grandfather.” His hand curled around the nape of my neck. “I’m not going anywhere, Stephanie.”
“I don’t want you to leave me.” I whispered those words, and it didn’t kill me to admit something so vulnerable. In all honesty, it did the exact opposite. Relief blossomed, tiny and frail, but there.
Nick’s hand stilled. “Why would you even think that?”
I raised a shoulder.
“Don’t do that.” His voice was gentle as his hand started to move again, kneading the tight muscles in my neck. “Talk to me.”
My hand slipped to his chest and curled there, above his heart. “I just don’t want you to leave, because I . . . I think you’re going to. We got together because I was pregnant. That’s why we were together. Not because of anything else, and now that’s gone, there’s no reason for you to keep doing this—”
“No reason?” Disbelief colored his tone.
“Well, I know you’re physically attracted to me, but . . . I don’t know.” I sighed. “None of this is really important right now. We can—”
“That is important right now.” His other hand rose, brushing back a strand of hair that had escaped the ponytail and was plastered to my cheek. “Why in the world would you think you being pregnant was the only reason I’ve been with you?”
When he said it like that, it did sound foolish, but our relationship had been far from normal. “You didn’t want to see me again after the first night we hooked up.”
“I—”
“I know you apologized, and honestly, I don’t even care about that, but when you did come back around, you just wanted to be friends. There was nothing more until after I found out I was pregnant,” I said, and then rushed on. “We never called each other boyfriend and girlfriend, and you said we were stuck together. That we were going to have to make the best out of this and . . .” And I trailed off, because really, what else needed to be said after that? Those were his words.
Nick was silent for a moment and then cursed under his breath. “Jesus, Stephanie, I fucked this up. I really did.”
Confused, I drew back and my gaze found his. “What?”
“Shit.” He lifted a hand, dragging it down his face. “Remember that night I came here to apologize for the way I acted in the bar? When I said I wished things were different between us? I wasn’t screwing around then. You have no idea how hard it was for me not to see you again after the night we hooked up. I wanted to. Fuck. I wanted to more than anything I’ve wanted to do in a long time.”
What the what . . . ? “Then why didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “My focus has been my grandfather for the last couple of years, and I didn’t want any other complications. I didn’t have time for one.” He dropped his hand. “But I’m also a fucking idiot. It’s not something I realized until I got to know you. That’s not a good enough excuse, but with everything that has happened in my family—losing almost all of them, and then the girl I thought I was in love with in college left me when shit got tough? Getting in a relationship again wasn’t something I was looking forward to. I’m going to be honest. The idea still . . . yeah, it scares me a little.”
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t know what to say as I shook my head.