The final words were like a death knell. Something beautiful had died. She stared at him for a long time. She could hear him breathing heavily. She was too.
Marlowe whimpered in confusion, clearly picking up signs that things weren’t right.
Nothing was right.
Everything was terrible.
Madeline had been thinking she was ready to move on to the next step with him, but now it had taken on the weight of being a girlfriend.
And she couldn’t commit to that. Not after Josh. Not after she’d spent so long trying and failing to make a relationship work.
She couldn’t stand to live through that with Ken.
He was waiting for her answer. He was uptight. Upset. One of his hands was clenched on the couch beside him.
She needed to give him an answer. The only answer she had in her to give right now.
“I’m... I’m not ready. For all that.” Her eyes started to burn. “I’m sorry.”
He gave a jerky nod. “Okay. I understand. I knew you weren’t in the same place. But I hoped...” He brushed the words off with a shake of his head. “I just wanted to be honest.”
“I’m glad you were.” She was about to cry and didn’t want to do it in front of him. She leaned over and kissed the side of his mouth. “I’m sorry we’re in different places. I had such a good time with you.”
“Me too.” His voice was rough, but he seemed to mean it.
“I’ll see you around.”
“See you.”
She couldn’t even see his face through the tears that hadn’t yet fallen. She stood up on shaky knees. Leaned down to kiss Marlowe’s head.
Then she got out of there before she burst into tears.
Eight
MADELINE HAD WALKED over to Ken’s house so no one would see her car parked in his driveway, which meant she had no other way to get home right now other than walking.
She was crying so much she could barely see in front of her, but she had sense enough to pull out the pepper spray she always carried in her purse. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock in the evening, and Azalea was as safe as a town could be—with most of the crime being minor or drug-related—but nowhere was perfectly safe, and even what felt like a broken heart wasn’t going to make her stupid.
She walked and cried and kept wiping her eyes with a balled-up tissue so she could see where she was going, and she veered back in surprise when a pair of headlights slowed down on the road beside her, pulling to a stop at exactly her location.
Too distracted to process the vehicle, she aimed her pepper spray when the window rolled down.
“Madeline.”
She lowered the canister when she recognized who it was. It was Ken’s voice. Ken’s truck. Ken’s face leaning over toward the open passenger-side window. Sniffing, she stepped over toward the curb.
“You shouldn’t walk home alone in the dark, baby,” he said, his voice hoarse and his expression visibly pained. He’d always been such a laid-back man. She’d never seen him so emotional before. “Let me take you.”
She hesitated, not because she didn’t appreciate the gesture but because she wasn’t sure it was a good idea for her to share even a few more minutes with him right now. Who knew what she would say? Or do.
“I can walk with you if you’d rather. Or trail behind you if you don’t want me around. But I don’t want you to walk alone in the dark. I’ll inch along in this truck as you walk if you won’t let me do anything else.”
His voice cracked on the last words, and that was the thing that finally decided her. She pulled open the door to the truck and climbed in, mopping off some more tears before she buckled the seat belt.
Ken watched her until she was settled, his blue eyes very dark in the dim light from the dashboard. When she shivered briefly from the cool night air, he turned up the heat. Then he started to drive without saying a word.
He’d gone two blocks before he burst out, “I’m so sorry, baby.”
She blinked and jerked her head to the side, surprised into looking at him directly, which she’d been avoiding until now. “What?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
His forehead wrinkled. He’d braked for a stop sign, and he hadn’t started up again even though there were no other drivers in sight. “For what? What do you think? I just sat in there in my house, in front of God and Marlowe, and I gave you a selfish ultimatum. I can’t believe I did that to you.”
“It wasn’t...” She trailed off. He had kind of given her an ultimatum, but it hadn’t felt like that. It had felt natural. Normal. And she was the one who hadn’t been able to do what she should have done. “It was more my fault than yours.”
“Why was it your fault?” He still had his foot on the brake, but he turned slightly in his seat to face her. “You’ve told me what you wanted from the beginning. I was the one who suddenly demanded that you give me exactly what I want even though it wasn’t what we’d agreed to. I was trying...” He took a raspy inhale. “I was trying to do better about being honest. Not trying to control the relationship by hiding what I feel. But I did it all wrong. I was still trying to control it by acting like there were only two options. And I’m so sorry I made you cry, Madeline. It’s the last thing I wanted to do.”
She was bawling again now. Couldn’t even begin to stop.
“So listen to me. I want to say what I should have said from the beginning. I’m pretty much gone on you. I didn’t mean it to happen, but it did. And I think I need...” He finally put the truck into park, still
