Risk & Reward by Alisha Rai Page B

his heart.
    But when she yelled in anger, it was all he could do not to run.
    Her small hands patted his face. They were callused from the work she did, a contrast to the rest of her soft, delicate body. “I told you to leave. That last time. Do you remember?”
    How could he ever forget? The scene played out behind his closed eyes. A younger version of the woman on top of him, angry and crying and screaming at him. I can’t take this anymore, Wyatt! We’re done. Get out. “And I did.” They’d never spoken again. Not even to exchange the things they’d kept at each other’s places. A week later, after packing everything in his rusty Civic, he’d headed west.
    “Don’t you ever wonder what happened to us?”
    “We were young. We weren’t able to handle that kind of a serious relationship.”
    She tsked. “That diminishes us both.”
    “We had problems. We didn’t know how to deal with them.” Wetness dripped on his cheeks. Her tears. God, how he hated her tears.
    “I think we still don’t know how to deal with them.”
     
    When his eyes flew open, Tatiana swallowed. They were hot and anguished, the cold and controlled Wyatt gone.
    She adored this man, the man he’d grown up to be. She probably loved him, though she refused to even contemplate that seriously until they got past this stumbling block in the middle of their path.
    “We didn’t have many serious problems, not ’til I graduated high school.” They’d fought then, but they’d been fights that had often ended in steamy make-out sessions in the backseat of Wyatt’s car, quickly forgotten and forgiven in the midst of their rioting hormones.
    Wyatt looked so uncomfortable, Tatiana almost let him up. But he was a big boy, and she figured if he really wanted to run, he could toss her off and run already.
    His nod was curt. “I remember our problems.”
    “Do you remember us fighting?” She placed her finger over his lips. “Or really, us apologizing, or using what we fought about to move forward? I remember the former. Me yelling. And you, either making sarcastic comments that only made me madder or storming off until we both cooled down.” Her shrug was jerky. “I can’t sustain my mad for long. So I would calm down. And we’d push that problem aside until something else happened. Nothing would ever get resolved.”
    He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m… I don’t know what to say. Is that really how you remember things? That we broke up because we didn’t fight?”
    “More like, we fought, but not in any constructive way.” She grimaced. “Do you know what I mean?”
    He stilled, his gaze far away.
    “Wyatt?”
    He shook his head. “Nothing. I-I said something earlier to Esme….” His thumb traced over her cheek, wiping away the wetness of her tears. “Come here.” He pulled her closer until she was lying down on top of him. Her face rubbed over the fine cotton of his shirt. She gave a spare thought to the snot and makeup she’d leave on it, but she knew he wouldn’t care.
    His hand smoothed up her back, his fingers scratching her skin the way he knew she loved. “I do remember you yelling.”
    She winced. “I know.”
    “I don’t want this to end.” His voice was quiet. “I know we haven’t been together long, but I’m falling for you.”
    “Are you? Or are you only falling for me when it’s easy to fall for me?” The question was brave of her. Brave, because she feared the answer so much.
    “What kind of a question is that?”
    “Look at our track record. We’re not good at handling things when the going gets tough.”
    “That’s not true. Some marriages don’t last as long as our relationship did.”
    “But it didn’t last forever,” she pointed out.
    “That doesn’t mean we can’t make things work now.”
    She softened, attuned to his upset. “I don’t want this to end either. That’s why I think it’s important to not repeat the mistakes we made before. We have a second chance,