Dream Chaser (Dream Team, #2)(71)

I had not been thinking about that.

I’d spent three days trying to make us work.

I’d just come up with that.

But even so, I was thinking I was right.

“We had a fight,” Boone contradicted. “Just a fight. Now we’re gonna talk it through and make up.”

“No, we’re not, because you’re gonna go.”

“Ryn—”

I looked at him through the shadows. “Really, I can’t do this.”

“Kathryn,” he bit out.

“We’re done.”

“Someone apologizes, and they mean it, babe, you should accept their apology.”

“You broke me.”

I heard and felt him suck in breath.

Oh God.

Oh shit.

Oh fuck.

I’d put it out there.

And when I did, my voice was not right.

Fuck!

I was going to lose it.

He heard it, let my wrists go, wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, his arm around me, and held tight.

I knew there was no hope of getting my hands between us to push him away, so I let my arms dangle at my sides, dragged in a ragged breath and repeated, “You broke me. We’re done.”

“Please listen to me, Ryn,” he begged.

“I can’t…I can’t do this.”

My tone was deteriorating again.

He moved his hand at my neck up to cup my head, shoved my face in his neck, and murmured in my ear, “Take a beat. Breathe.”

My breath was hitching. I was trying to hold them back.

And I was worried I was failing.

“Or don’t, sweetheart. Just let go,” he urged.

“No,” I croaked.

“Why?”

“I can’t be this person.”

“Why?”

“I have to hold it together.”

“Why?”

“Because if I don’t…”

I didn’t finish.

“What?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.

“What, Ryn? What’ll happen if you don’t hold it together?”

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know what would happen.

My mom would distance herself from me because she had a life of eating shit, taking shit, and working like hell to raise her kids, and Brian repaid her with more shit, so she didn’t need mine?

Or Boone would decide in the end I just wasn’t worth it because I wasn’t only a mess, I was weak and a loser?

“Baby—”

“Stop it, let me go,” I whispered.

“Rynnie,” he whispered back.

Rynnie.

God!

I couldn’t take any more.

I yanked back and screamed in his face, “Stop it, let me go!”

He didn’t let me go, mostly because I collapsed against him and started bawling.

Great.

Just great.

He wrapped his arms tight around me and held me, rocking me gently at the same time stroking my back.

But, apparently, you hold back tears for long enough, you run up a huge store, and even if you’d let some go not too long ago, there were more ready and waiting to be unleashed.

A lot more.

So this was lasting awhile, and since we were on the floor and that obviously wasn’t uber comfortable for Boone, he managed (shockingly) to maneuver himself to his feet with me still in his lap and his arms. And then he put us both in my bed (with me still in his arms).

I cried through this.

And I cried some more.

But as this stuff goes, thankfully, I eventually cried myself out.

Which left me feeling exhausted, my nose was all stuffy, and I was embarrassed as all hell.

“You need Kleenex?” Boone murmured.

All I had in me was to nod my head.

I didn’t have Kleenex in my bedroom, so he got up, went to the bathroom, and came back in record time.

I was again in his arms but trying to twist away at the same time wipe my face and blow my nose (smartly, he’d brought the whole box).

Boone was having none of the pulling-away business.

And really, I was just too tired to fight it.

When I was done, he took the used tissue from me (gross, but still sweet). I guessed he threw them on the floor (though I didn’t care what he did with them).

And then he came back to me and pulled me snug into his arms.

Again with the too tired to fight.

“You wanna sleep that off or you wanna talk?” he asked.

There was a lot I wanted.

But it didn’t seem I ever got it.

“Baby?” he prompted.

“Go to sleep,” I mumbled.

“All right,” he whispered, tucking me closer.

I sucked a huge breath into my nose and didn’t know I didn’t let it out until Boone ordered, “Let that go, Kathryn.”

I let it go.

He tucked me even closer.

Damn.

Boone started twisting my hair around his fingers.

No one had ever done that to me, and it felt really nice.

Crap.

I started relaxing.

Boone relaxed with me.

I would never have dreamed it would happen, but I suppose after that mammoth crying jag, it was bound to.