This One Moment (Pushing Limits, #1)(57)

I threaded my fingers with his. I didn’t know what else to say when it came to what had happened today. I hoped that in time he would realize it wasn’t his fault. “You’ve got to do what you have to do. You’ve worked too hard for this not to.” I swallowed back the pain and tears. “When do you leave?”

“Early tomorrow morning.”

Tonight would be our last night together. “I know you don’t want to, but before you return to L.A., you should visit your parents’ house. It’ll give you the closure you need.”

He shook his head, eyes full of heartbreaking sorrow that made you want to hug him and never let go. “But I don’t want to remember,” he whispered.

I glanced back at the foosball table. “Tell you what—if I win, you visit your parents’ house.” I squeezed his hand. “I’ll be with you the entire time, like at the cemetery.”

“And if I win?”

“I’ll never bring it up again.”





Chapter 36


Hailey


I rubbed my hands together, preparing to win the game. Since he’d moved into the apartment, we had played the game almost nightly. While we might both have been rusty at first, we’d quickly regained our form. It was almost like we’d never stopped playing, except Nolan was better at the game than he used to be.

Which meant this game could go either way.

We got into position and I popped the ball through the hole. Desperation hovered in the air, both of us wanting to win more than we’d ever wanted it before. Never had the stakes been so high.

Nolan’s player kicked the ball down the field, but I blocked it in time. I attempted to shoot it toward his goal and almost succeeded, but his player regained ownership of it.

The game continued like this—just as one of us was about to score, the other one blocked the shot and stole the ball. We battled for what felt like half the night, but the score was tied at 2–2. The next goal would win the game. I’d never seen him look so determined and so intense as he did now.

I tossed the ball through the small hole in the side of the table and immediately moved my nearest player to kick it. Only I nicked it, and the ball careened toward Nolan’s line of players. I frantically tried to block it but I wasn’t fast enough.

Nolan scored.

And angels wept. Or more likely, their tears turned to snow. Small flakes started falling from the sky and clung to the living room window.

But from the way Nolan cheered, you’d have thought he’d won the World Cup. Which meant not only was he not going to his parents’ tonight—and never would—I couldn’t bring it up again. If there was an again. I had no idea if this would be the last time I’d ever seen him.

Somehow I had a feeling it was.

As if thinking the same, Nolan let his cheering die away and he reached for me. He pulled me close and his lips found mine. Unlike when we were in the shower, these kisses weren’t sweet and unassuming. They were knotted with both desire and an unspoken fear we would never see each other again. Not like this.

The kisses grew hungrier and more intense. I’m not sure how it happened, but one minute we were in the living room kissing, and the next we were in my room, our clothes on the floor.

The intensity of the kisses shifted. They were still passionate, but our caresses became tender as we worshiped each other’s body, worshiped each other’s soul.

I memorized his sounds, his smells, the feel of his skin against my mine. When he finally entered me, I memorized how he felt inside me, how he filled me, how he made me come, crying out his name. And as I came back down to earth next to him on the bed, I memorized the sound of his heartbeat, my head resting on his chest.

He enveloped me in his arms and drew soothing circles on my back. I fought against sleep for the longest time, neither of us speaking, both of us soaking in these last precious moments together.

Outside, the wind howled through the hibernating trees, warning of a coming storm. If I was lucky, it meant Nolan’s flight would be canceled, and he’d be stranded in Northbridge for a few more days.

By slow degrees, my exhaustion from everything that had happened today became too powerful for me to hold back, and I drifted off to sleep.

—

When I woke up, the early morning rays of sunlight poked through the gaps in the curtains. Last night’s storm had long since moved on. That was the first thing I noticed. The second was that Nolan’s arms were no longer wrapped around me and my head was no longer on his chest.

Even before I reached out to his side of the bed and touched the empty sheets, an ache filled every space in my body. My fingers searched for a sign that he had recently been here, but the warmth from his body had long since faded. I didn’t have to leave my room to know that he was on his flight back to L.A.

Blinking away the tears, I hugged his pillow and inhaled his scent still clinging to it. But this failed to dull the ache. If anything, it only intensified it. As did the knowledge that eventually the scent would disappear, like the warmth on his side. And then I’d be left with nothing to remember him.

Clearly a glutton for punishment, I relived the memory of last night, of the last time I would make love with him.

And I relived the memory of his lips against my forget-me-not tattoo. When I’d gotten it, I’d half hoped the old belief was true and that my lover would never forget me. But back then, Nolan hadn’t been my lover. Whether the belief was true or not hadn’t mattered. Now it mattered more than I cared to admit. I never wanted Nolan to forget what I meant to him, but that was nothing more than a foolish wish. The wish of someone who deep down wanted to believe in happily-ever-afters.