Solid Gold Cowboy by Maisey Yates (books to read for teens TXT) 📕

from the beginning and he hadn’t. He had kept her close to him. Kept her with him, and now she was saying that she loved him.

And it didn’t escape him that he was keeping her close so that he could still access her. Because he was an absolute dick, and even while he realized that, he couldn’t stop himself from making the offer.

And he knew that she wouldn’t be able to refuse.

“I... All right,” she said. And she blinked furiously, trying to hide her hurt.

He would never reject Jordan’s love. He couldn’t do that. But he couldn’t have her living in his house and he couldn’t make her promises that he didn’t want to keep.

That he couldn’t keep.

Except he kept feeling like didn’t want to was closer to the truth, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise.

He didn’t want to hurt her. Not for anything.

But he wanted things to keep working the way that he wanted them to. “I’ll help you move in as soon as it’s clean.”

“Well, thanks. You gave me a suitcase.”

And he remembered the words from an old movie, twisted to suit the moment. She’d given him her heart and he’d given her a suitcase.

And he didn’t do anything to fix it.

“What kind of cake is it?”

“Chocolate,” she answered.

“Great. You need help with anything?”

“No. I’m fine.” She swallowed hard and nodded, and he felt a cloud of guilt. And he didn’t do anything about it.

And that was how things changed between them again. Not with shouting or screaming or anything like that. Just with a suitcase and the throat full of unspoken words.

And that was when Laz realized that he really was his parents.

And he knew there was no way that he could explain that to her. Because that wasn’t something he did. He wasn’t the one who shared.

He gave advice. And that was it. And he didn’t quite know what to do with being at a loss.

Except keep on down that road.

So that was what he did.

CHAPTER SIX

JORDAN HAD BEEN wrestling with feeling like she’d been gutted alive for the last few days. All the while that Laz had that apartment fixed up for her. And all the way up to moving day.

But she didn’t say anything. Even though she should have. Even though she wanted to. She didn’t say anything when she packed up that suitcase that he brought her, that brief, shining evidence of the fact that he knew her, followed by a devastating strange sort of half rejection.

It’s actually not unreasonable for him to not want to move in with you.

She knew that. But she had said that she loved him and he hadn’t said anything back. And she hadn’t said it again since.

And you were willing to accept something different, remember?

Except, it turned out that actually what she really wanted was for him to be in love with her.

But she would continue to see him. Of course she would.

Because their relationship was good in so many other ways, and it was grounding and...

She stood in the center of that apartment, frozen.

And what would happen if she was really alone? If she had to face the town, completely unprotected by her relationship with Dylan’s family, and even with their censure rolling through the community. If she had to go on without her friendship with Laz, without him sharing her bed.

If she was just a woman who lived alone, and had to cope with herself and any potential demons...

What was she?

And when Laz came up with the last box, she turned to face him. “We can’t keep sleeping together,” she said.

He stopped. “We can’t?”

“No. So if you moved me here to have easy access to me, bad news.”

“Why can’t we?”

“Because I love you. But I don’t need to be in a relationship with you to keep myself safe from heroin, or whatever it is I’ve been thinking all of my life about all of these relationships that I have. I denied my first instinct with you, because I didn’t trust my instincts at all. I was so sure that they were going to land me in a bad spot that I... That I denied them. And I denied myself. But Laz, I’m not doing that anymore. I love you. Like as more than a friend. But I don’t want to accept a half-life where we don’t have a future. I thought that I could. I thought that I could sleep with you and do the friends with benefits thing and that that would be enough.

“But it isn’t. And hanging on to that is just something I’m doing out of fear. Because I don’t know what my life looks like if you’re not in it. Because I’m afraid of who I’ll become, but I can’t stay with people for that reason. Not anymore. I’ve done too much of that. I’m not going to do it anymore. Not for you. And not for anyone.”

“Jordan...”

“No. I made a lot of mistakes with Dylan, not least of which was letting it get to our wedding day, and then running away rather than having a conversation with him. But I’m not doing that anymore. The one brave thing buried in all those cowardly decisions that I made was I was willing to change my life. Willing to dramatically change it. And I still am. But I need you to be willing to meet me halfway. I can’t do this. Because I’ve already done the relationship where I make all the compromises because I might be broken.”

“It’s not you who’s broken.”

“You’re not broken either. But you’re going to have to decide to be whole, I can’t decide that for you. Any more than Dylan could decide it for me, and you can’t make a relationship work with someone that dedicated to living in their pain. Believe me. I know.” She looked around the room. “So thank you for the apartment. I will pay rent on it. And I’ll still... Speak to you. And be your friend.