The four months between.
Ned refusing to meet with me.
And now, my trip home.
Isabel puffed out her cheeks and exhaled. “Well … I guess my birthday has been good for one thing,” she said wryly. “You’re welcome.”
I exhaled a laugh.
“That must’ve been hard for both of you,” she said. “That last conversation.”
When I thought about Adaline’s obvious panic, the slow tightening of tension through her whole body as I held her, I could pinpoint the moment down to the second when she realized the impossible position she was in.
The one I was in too.
I wanted to leave and couldn’t—unless I was willing to walk away from my team.
She wanted to be with me and wouldn’t—unless she was willing to leave her family when they needed her.
Part of why I loved her was how she took care of the people she loved. Part of why she loved me was my dedication to the people I was responsible to.
If either of us made those choices, it went in direct contradiction to what made us who we were.
“I’m so frustrated with where we ended up,” I told Isabel, “even though I understand why. I know that I’m in love with her, and even if she didn’t say it back, she’s in love with me too.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I can’t do anything about it, and it makes me feel so fucking useless.”
Isabel smiled.
“What?” I snapped.
That made her smile grow. “Kid, you’ve had a pretty charmed existence.”
I slicked my tongue over my teeth.
“It’s not something that should be held against you. People with good parents can go through really shitty things, but you just … breezed through your life, Emmett. You got into the good school and made the good grades, all while dominating a really hard game to dominate. And when you took the next step”—she shook her head—“it was amazing to watch you. You took to all of it so easily. It didn’t change you into some showboating asshole who only cared about making money and sleeping with supermodels.”
“Mom was a supermodel. You better not let her hear you say that,” I said.
She laughed.
While her words sank in, I shifted in my seat. “I know you’re right, but it didn’t feel easy at the time. Making the grades and playing the game, leaving my family to move across the country.”
“I know you worked your ass off. That’s not what I mean.” She turned in her chair. “But this is the first time in your life that you’ve truly wanted something—but couldn’t have it.”
“I just want,” I stopped and cleared my throat. “I want what I’ve seen my whole life. Mom and Dad, the four of you and your husbands. I took it for granted. Always assumed it would come down the road. But I never gave any thought to the why or how. The complications. It’s like, I shoved that part of my future away in some box that I’d open again. Eventually. Once I saw her again, once I knew how it could be between us, I can’t close it back up. I don’t want to.”
“Boy, do I know what it’s like to do that,” she mused. Isabel waved a finger between us. “Pot, meet kettle.”
“It shouldn’t be this hard to be with the person you want,” I said quietly, repeating Adaline’s words from the day she left.
I’d thought about them for the past two nights. Thought about her—missed her—for the past two nights. Because I was a glutton for punishment, I chose to stay in the green bedroom. If I pressed her pillow against my face, I could still smell that mango shampoo.