Some of the anger drains from Alex’s face, and he reaches out to place his hands on my shoulders. Leaning in, he looks me dead in the eye. “He’s hurting a lot. I know you are too. That’s what happens when two people who love each other and don’t have any sane reason for being apart keep themselves apart.”

I bring my hands up and clasp them onto Alex’s wrists. “It’s not that simple. I had to cut Garrett loose.”

“You had to cut him loose?” Alex asks me incredulously as he releases his hold. His eyes flash hot again. “Garrett filled me in on your asinine ideas. About how you overheard him talking to Stevie, and how you don’t want him to be devastated if something happened to you, yada, yada, yada.”

His voice sounds bored…and he’s…he’s…mocking me?

My face heats with anger. “Don’t make light of my feelings,” I snap at him. “You don’t know what it’s like to be in my shoes and have to deal with this shit.”

Alex shakes his head, completely nonplussed with my outburst. “Darling…I may not know what it’s like to have cancer, but I do know what it’s like to be in love, and there isn’t anything better. You gave that up because it got too hard for you.”

“I gave Garrett up because I care about him. I love him and I don’t want him to be destroyed by me down the road. I did it for him.”

“Oh, bullshit, Olivia,” Alex snarls at me…which is actually a bit scary, and I lean back on the stool to try to distance myself from the venom in his voice. “You did it for you…because you’re too afraid to let someone in all the way. You disrespected Garrett and demeaned his feelings for you. You made a unilateral decision, and I’m here to tell you, honey…it was a bad decision.”

I open my mouth to tear into him, but nothing comes out. My lips move and I’m sure I look like a gasping fish, but no words of wisdom or outrage pour out. I’m wallowing in stunned silence after Alex’s harsh words.

Taking a deep breath, Alex lets it out slowly, and he gives me a small smile. “Look…I didn’t come here to jump all over you. I just wanted to try to give you some perspective.”

“And what perspective would that be that I haven’t already considered?” I don’t ask this defensively, but with genuine curiosity, because maybe I’m desperately seeking something to make me realize that I am truly wrong about all this.

“Do you truly understand how much Garrett has changed since he met you?”

I nod, my mind swirling through hundreds of memories I’ve built with him over the past months, all the complete antithesis to the man-whore philanderer he was.

“He changed for the better after meeting you, because that’s what love does to you. It happened to me with Sutton. And the thing that impresses me the most about Garrett is the amazing strength and fortitude he has shown. I don’t know of any other man that would have done what he’s done…stood by your side, made you a priority, given you strength to help fight this.”

“I know,” I whisper with shame. Shame that I took all that from him.

“Then you need to let him continue being strong. You need to let him, as a man, prove that strength to you. You took away his decision to fight this out with you…you weakened him with your inflexibility and unwillingness to talk this through. You showed no respect or honor for what he’s done for you already, and you should be ashamed.”

Holy shit, those words hurt. I mean really, really hurt deep in my gut.

My head lowers and I stare blankly at the tiled floor. I refuse to look up at him, still refusing to let go of my greatest fear. “But what if I die on him? What if I let him love me and then I die?”

Alex’s hand reaches out and cups me under the chin. He pushes up to raise my face, and my eyes hesitantly drag to his. He gives me a sympathetic smile, cocking his head to the side. Leaning in, he whispers, “But what if you fucking live?”

Chapter 29

Garrett

I keep watching the door of Houlihan’s, my gaze sliding from the three women standing around me…past their shoulders, past the other bar patrons…and to that damn door where I hope Olivia will be walking in.

Alex, that fuckwad, didn’t tell me she’d be at the game tonight. He just told me that he had gone by Fleurish to check in on her, welcome her back home, but then he was strangely silent. It’s okay…I wasn’t about to ask him the details, because the more I let my mind wander to Olivia, the more it opens up old hurts. That’s why after a solid week of writing her emails and never getting one response, I finally just decided to let it go.

Let her go, the way she’d let me go.

And, fuck, if I haven’t felt miserable ever since.

Miserable I’ve lost her, and hurt and pissed and furious that she would do this to me. That she had such little regard for the connection we had. I love her, for Christ’s sake, and she said she loved me…once at least.

I was out on the ice during warm-ups when out of the corner of my eye I saw Alex skate up to the glass and bump his fist against it. I saw Sutton there with her little brother, Glenn, who was bumping his fist back against the glass in response to Alex. I let a smile come to my face, feeling its warmth, because smiles didn’t come often to me, and started to turn away. But then I realized there was someone else familiar standing next to Glenn.

Long, golden hair striped amber, caramel, and dark brown among the blond. Braided…one hanging over each shoulder.