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I sighed as I leaned back in my chair. Avoidance wasn’t exactly a new skill for me. I’d spent years perfecting it. If something got close enough to hurt, I created distance before it could. Apparently, emotional growth didn’t mean I stopped wanting to do that. It just meant I was annoyingly aware of it now.

The worst part was that Theo hadn’t done anything wrong. Logically, I knew that. I just couldn’t stop the dread from taking over. Was I setting myself up to be hurt?

That was the question I couldn’t let go. I’d spent so many years avoiding relationships to protect myself—because I couldn’t accept that loving someone meant giving them the power to hurt me. But I’d gone and fallen in love with someone whose entire future was uncertain. Whose entire future could potentially be better if I wasn’t in it.

The rational part of me understood that Theo couldn’t promise me what any part of his life would look like years from now. Hell, neither could I. But I was a concrete person. I needed something to hold onto more than the million what-ifs running through my mind. Without that, I was spiraling.

Needing an anchor, I grabbed my phone and called Sariah because if anyone could put me back in the right frame of mind, it was her.

“You know why I hate dating?” I began when she answered.

“Is it important enough to wake me up in the middle of the night?” she grumbled. I glanced at the clock and frowned. It wasn’t that late. At least not here.

“Fuck,” I said, realizing I’d completely forgotten the time difference from her traveling abroad. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s whatever. Hold on,” Sariah replied. I listened to her groan, shuffle about, and heard a door click shut. “Okay. We are now bathroom buddies.”

“Sexy,” I retorted.

“For what reason do you hate dating today?” she asked softly. “Or should I ask, what did Theo do?”

Of course she skipped directly past the bullshit. And knowing I was keeping her up late, I gave her the quickest recap I could. I kept it clinical at first—what Theo’s father had said, what I’d told him about the NFL, what Theo had asked about us—but somewhere along the way, I couldn’t stop the emotion from building in my voice.

When all was said and done, she didn’t say a single word. She just sat there breathing on the other end, and while I knew she was processing, it didn’t help my anxiety.

“Ouch,” she murmured.

“Yeah.” I let out a humorless laugh. “You can say that again.”

“I’m sorry, Rhodes,” she said. “I know what you heard when he said that, even if it probably wasn’t what he meant.”

My throat tightened. There was a difference between what Theo had actually said and everything my mind had attached to it afterward. Knowing that didn’t make separating the two any easier.

“That’s the problem, though,” I replied. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No, he didn’t,” she agreed. “But something doesn’t have to be wrong for it to hurt.”

I stared up at the ceiling.

“I wanted him to choose me.”

“Of course you did.”

“And I fucking hate that I wanted that.”

“Why?”

“Because football has been his life, and I refuse to be the asshole who makes him prove he loves me by sacrificing a potentially incredible career,” I explained. I knew what it felt like to have somebody else decide what your life should look like and call those expectations love. I could never do that to Theo.

“You really need to stop arguing with yourself like you’ve asked him to do that,” Sariah said, making my frown deepen. “Look, Rho, you’re taking one conversation about a hypothetical problem for his future and turning it into proof that Theo will eventually leave you or push you to leave him. That’s your fear talking. It’s being a bitch. But that’s not Theo.”

I made a frustrated sound, but she ignored me. Probably because she knew exactly what I was thinking without me ever saying a word. It was definitely along the lines of: I know you’re right, but I’d appreciate it if you were less right.

Actually, she had every right to ignore me.

“You need to apply that logic and gung-ho attitude you have for literally everything else to your relationship. If this had to do with work, you’d open the most infuriating line of conversation with your team, wouldn’t you? You’d go through every plausible plan between here and the goddamn moon to make sure that—as a team—you were prepared for whatever came next.”

“Fuck you,” I muttered because she was right. That was exactly what I’d do. I didn’t avoid uncertainty in any other part of my life, especially professionally. I attacked it from multiple different angles until I understood enough to move forward.