Her eyes looked up at me expectantly when I didn't start speaking, but I didn't say anything until she'd finished, and her dress was smoothed down over her lap. I laid my hand on her thigh and took a deep breath.
"Something crazy happened …" she prompted.
"Yeah." My hands curled so easily around her thigh, the skin warm and soft. It was easier to focus on that than her face when I said this, trying to keep what I'd practiced straight in my head. "I got a job offer."
"What?" she gasped. "Where? Levi! That's great! What's the job?"
"Well, it’s a favor my brother called in. I never, ever thought they'd even want more than a first interview."
Her eyes were bright with pride and excitement, her mouth spread in a wide smile. "Of course they did. You're amazing."
"It's an assistant trainer position for a football team."
"Oh my gosh," she breathed, slapping my shoulder. "It's exactly what you wanted. For who? High school? College?"
I held my breath. "Pro, actually."
"What?" she screeched. I saw her mentally rifle through teams, her smile drop just a little. "Nashville?"
I shook my head, and her smile dropped just a little bit more. Her face lost some of its color.
"The Washington Wolves."
She blinked. Her mouth popped open. I took my hand from her thigh and wrapped my fingers around hers.
"Th-that's in Seattle," she said when she finally spoke. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. "Seattle. Holy shit."
"I know. It's insane to me too." I tightened my fingers even though she hadn't tried to pull away. "He called me last night after you left."
"Did you," she swallowed, "did you take it?"
Her eyes were wide as she looked at me, and I saw the fear in them. The shock.
"I told him I'd call him back today or tomorrow with my final decision."
"T-today or tomorrow?"
Shifting closer to her on the bench, I carefully took her face in my hands. "Come with me."
"What?" she whispered, face going sheet white.
"Come with me to Washington." I kissed her, but her lips only barely nudged mine in return. "I never, ever thought they'd offer me this job, Joss, and yes, it's a huge shock, but I only want to go there if I can go with you."
She pulled her face back, eyes searching mine. "You'd give it up? Are you crazy?"
"I'm crazy about you," I clarified. "I couldn't move across the country from you, not now, not after this."
Joss raised a shaking hand to her mouth and stared out the windshield. "What the hell is it about this truck?" she said, almost to herself.
"What do you mean?"
She laughed under her breath and shook her head. "You kiss me for the first time and then tell clueless me that you've wanted to be more than friends for the entire time you've known me."
I closed my eyes.
"We have sex, and now you've got this whole future planned across the country that clueless me had no idea about."
"Hang on, I don't have a whole future planned there." When she wouldn't meet my eyes, I felt a quick stab of panic. "I want to plan that future together. And if your heart is here, if Green Valley is the only place you can imagine yourself, then I'll beat the pavement as long as I need to in order to stay right here with you."
Her breathing got faster and faster as I spoke. "Great, so I can be the dream crusher. Always a role I've wanted for myself."
"There will be other jobs, Joss," I said, and my voice was sharp enough that she finally gave those eyes back to me. But the shuttered emotion I saw there had my chest squeezing tight. "You are the dream I've had longer than any work I might do."
"You can say that after a couple of weeks," she said quietly.
"It's not about the length of time, and you know it."
Her face turned away, but she didn't argue.
"When did you go?" she asked.
I inhaled slowly. "They flew me out a couple of days after … after you asked for time to think."
She nodded, turning her chin back toward me. "You are asking a lot of me, no matter what I say. You know that, right?"
"I know." I took her hands again, and she let me. "I know."
"Did you like Seattle?" Her tentative voice was so unlike her. She was scared of my answer, and I could hear it, plain as day.
"Will you look at me?"
"Just answer the question, Levi." She sniffed quietly.
I lifted our hands and kissed her fingers, breathing in the scent of her skin.
"I loved it," I told her, my lips brushing against her knuckles.
"And you could see yourself living there?"
"Without you? Not happily," I answered immediately.
Her face turned to mine. There was a shine in her eyes, but she wasn't crying. "That's not what I asked."
"I feel like I'm being baited here, Sonic."
"Really? Because I'm the one who's always tossed into these conversations right before everything changes. You feel like you're being baited, Levi, when you've known about this for weeks and didn't tell me." Her voice rose, and her eyes flashed. She pulled her fingers from mine.
I had two worst-case scenarios, and this was one of them. I bit down on every defense I could've conjured and let her unload. It was better than her leaving, shutting down.
"You had how many interviews? Two? Three?" she guessed. "I'm your best friend, and you didn't tell me shit. And all of a sudden, I get one or two days to either decide to uproot my life or tell you to give up an amazing opportunity. How the hell do you expect me to react to that? We've been dating for like, five minutes, Levi."
"Don't," I interjected. "Don't diminish it because you're pissed at me. One I'm fine with, and the other I'll call bullshit
