“Today, I saw you with another woman … and it hurt so much. It reminded me how painful it is when you lose someone you care about.” She nodded, tears spilling down her pretty cheeks. “You… you have power over me, and I don’t think,” she swallowed hard, “I don’t think this is going to work if one of us feels more than the other.”

I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Why the fuck would you think you feel more for me than I feel for you? It’s not true. You have power over me too.”

“Rhys, I don’t—”

I reached out, hooking an arm around her waist and easily drew her up against me. She gasped at the sudden movement. “You’re right; I’m not good at letting people get close, or letting them help me. But I have with you. I told you all my shit and you convinced me to talk to Dean. I asked you to help organize the exhibition fight and you stepped up… if I’ve been distant since then, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. But Parker, you’re all that I think about. You are the only purely good and clean thing in my life that’s just for me. I promise to try harder at talking to you about shit instead of burying it, if you promise to stop having entire conversations between us in your head.”

She pressed a hand to my heart, surely able to feel it racing. But she pursed her lips wryly. “I do not have entire conversations between us in my head.”

My smile was tremulous—because, fuck, she’d scared the hell out of me with her talk of letting go. I held her closer. “Yeah? Don’t you think it might better to talk to me before deciding you and I aren’t right for each other?”

Parker sighed and rested her head on my shoulder with a thud. “This was the talk to see if we’re right for each other, Rhys.”

“Ah.” I cleared my throat. “Like I said, I’m not really any good at conversations like this. But I’ll try, Parker. I swear, I’ll try.”

“I know you will,” she whispered. “If you tell me you’ll do something, you always do it.” Slowly, she wrapped her arms around my neck, and I squeezed my eyes shut, not realizing how much I needed that simple touch too.

We stood together for a minute, getting used to each other again. I’d never had an argument with a woman where the outcome had the potential to ruin me. That right there told me all I needed to know about how much I was invested in Parker.