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My heart rate spikes. “Hi.”
He looks at me a moment longer, and he looks at me as though I’m a stranger. “Hey.”
So very awkward.
Make it stop.
Clark doesn’t look up at me, but his voice comes out thick and low. “What’s happening with us, Cat?” When I don’t make an attempt to answer—because, quite frankly, I have no idea what to say—he sighs, “I know you know. Frankie warned me before I came out looking for you.”
I slowly make my way over to the bench and hesitantly sit by his side. I didn’t want to go here tonight, especially when Clark’s date is waiting for him inside, but there’s no avoiding it. “I don’t know anything. I thought she was joking.” I roll my eyes and nudge him gently with my shoulder. “You know how Frankie is; she’s sarcastic so often she even starts to believe her own bullshit.”
Much to my relief, he chuckles. “Yeah, I know, but she’s honest when counts.” He leans forward and places his elbows back onto his knees. “It’s true though; she wasn’t lying.” He turns his head and says sincerely, “I think I’m in love with you.”
My throat tightens, along with my gut. I’m finding it hard to breathe.
Love hasn’t worked out well for me in the past. It’s not something I associate with happy emotions.
“How do you know?” I whisper.
He barks out a humourless laugh. “I know, Cat. I just know,” he pauses, “or at least I thought I did. I’m not sure about anything anymore.” He looks over at me. “You know why I didn’t bring Michelle here earlier?”
I shake my head in complete silence.
He explains, “Because I wasn’t sure if I was in love with you, or if I was in love with Cat from three years ago.” He breathes deeply and continues on an exhale, “Then you came back to Mirage, and all these feelings came rushing back from where I hid them, but I was already seeing Michelle. I didn’t want to be unfair to her, so I delayed her meeting you all. So when I finally decided to bring her down here to meet you guys, Frankie took the opportunity to spill her guts to you, and when we got here, you start acting like a little kid who had to share her favourite toy.”
I flush and glare all at once. “I did not!”
He smirks. “You did, Cat. You really did.” Placing my hands on the bench, I bite my lip to stop myself from getting defensive. A warm hand comes over mine, and I look up into Clark’s eyes. He utters, “It’s okay. I would’ve done the same thing.”
My gaze moves to my garden—my pride and joy—and without permission, my mouth opens and reveals things I never intended to share. “I had the biggest crush on you.” I smile into the night. “You were my guy, but you didn’t even know it. I was fifteen when I saw you for the first time. I knew what Mirage was and why you were there, but I was never allowed near you, and I think in a lot of ways that made you safe. You were a really safe person for me to have a crush on.”
He smiles sadly, and I know this isn’t something he wants to hear.
I go on, “Then came time for my first initiation mission, and I had to work with you. And when I got to know you...” I pause for a moment, unsure if I want to tell him anymore. Acting against my gut feeling, I tell him honestly, “...I thought you were amazing, everything a girl could ever want in a guy. You were super smart and sweet. You were attentive and gave me your time, and I,” I swallow hard and whisper, “I was in love with you, for a very long time.”
Clark sucks in a quick breath. I can feel his eyes on me when he mutters, “I feel like there’s a but in there somewhere.”
A small smile tilts my lips. “But a lot has happened. It’s been years, and what happened with James...it hurt. There was a long time where I questioned my every feeling, because it felt like everything was a lie, and...” my heart sinks as I realise now is the time to be honest, cruelly so, “...and I forgot about you. You drifted into the background. I was locked out of Mirage and focused on training. I didn’t want to love you anymore, and subconsciously, I think I stopped.”
The silence wraps around us in a cocoon of discomfort, but if I have to be here with anyone, I’m glad it’s with Clark. He has a way of making a person feel better, just by doing nothing other than being in their presence.
A minute passes. Then two. Finally, he speaks gently, “This is so fucked up.”
That being the farthest thing from what I imagined he would say, a startled laugh flies out of me. Relief loosens some of the tension in my chest. “Yeah. It is. Fucked. Totally.”
Clark smiles that mischievous smile I love and mutters, “God, it was fun watching you be all jealous over me.”
Infuriating man. “I was not jealous.”
He bumps me with his shoulder. “You were. Which brings up the questions: why were you jealous, and why do you care so much?”
Frustration causes me to bark out, “I don’t care!”
In a moment of serene clarity, my mind’s eye winks at me as the answer is presented plain and simple.
My brow furrows. I blink and whisper, “I don’t care.”
I don’t care. Not even an iota. I don’t care if Clark is dating Michelle.
I’m not in love with Clark.
“I’m sorry, Clark. I don’t care.” I look over at him and my heart skips a beat.
The hurt written on his face is impossible for him to mask. His brows rise as he mutters, “Wow. Ouch.”
There is one thing I feel I need to do to prove this sudden epiphany.
“Kiss me, Clark.”
His brows almost hit his hairline. He sputters, “W-what?”
I shrug. “Kiss me. Please.” When all he does is blink and look at me like I’ve lost my mind, I add in complete seriousness, “I need you to do this. It’s the only way I’ll know for sure. Please, kiss me.”
He swallows, leans forward and stops a hairs breadth away from my lips. His breath warms me as he whispers, “I’ve wanted to do this for years.” Then his lips are on mine.
This is not the gentle kiss I had imagined almost a million times over. This kiss is desperate and forceful, as if he is begging me to love him. And it makes my heart hurt.
My mouth opens to his, and the tip of his tongue darts out to coax mine.
It’s pleasant. And warm. And inviting—in a very platonic way. He tastes like cola and smells sweet, like apples. But...
“Wait.”
Clark’s body stiffens as he pulls away from me. He cringes. “Was it bad? It was bad, wasn’t it?”
“No! It wasn’t. It was very nice, Clark, but...”
I try to find the words. Luckily for me, Clark fills the missing spaces easily enough. He sighs, “But it’s not enough.”
A feeling of helplessness pulses through me. I feel like an asshole. “I’m so sorry, Clark. I wouldn’t have asked you to do that if I didn’t need to know. I would never lead you on.”
He nods. “I know. And in a way, I’m glad we got this out of the way. Now we know.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “It is what it is.”
Without another word spoken, he stands, places his hands in his pockets and starts to walk back to the kitchen entrance.
I whisper to his retreating back, “I’ll always love you, Clark, just not in the way you need me to.” Wide awake and needing a distraction, I look over to the barn and decide to lose myself for a little longer before I call it a night.
***
If you were outside looking in, Mirage would not look like a threat. With only two desks, a few whiteboards, filing cabinets up the wazoo, printers and fax machines, it would look about as dangerous as an office anywhere in the world.
Looks can be so very deceiving.
Mirage may look identical to any other office space, but it is the nerve centre of a powerful operation; one I don’t fully understand myself. A fax, email or phone call to Mirage will end a life in a matter of days. Chances are that life will meet an end by my own hand.
Such is life, I suppose.
The first thing I did w
hen I made my way inside was turn on the radio and put the volume up high enough to make my eardrums ring.
Music and songs are strange things. They can take you on a journey so far away, so deep into your mind you don’t realise you’ve been taken away until the very last note sounds and you’re brought tumbling back to reality.
Music is a beautiful thing.
So is communion wine.
When you take music and add communion wine, you’re in for a good time.
Sitting my butt on the floor with my back against Clark’s desk, I open the bottle of wine and take a hefty swig. Then another. And another after that. With the music playing and the wine warming my belly, I lean my head back on the desk and close my eyes. I try to see the good in what happened tonight, but hurting Clark in the meantime sucks.
I would never hurt anyone willingly. As I think about that statement, I chuckle to myself.
I’ll kill a man, but the thought of hurting my friend’s feelings makes me ill?
Oh, man. I am all sorts of screwed up.
When the bottle of wine is pulled from my hands, I jerk upright in shock and open my eyes. Marco sits close to me and tilts the bottle of wine up, taking a swig. Snatching the stereo remote from my other hand, he turns down the music to a barely audible level and apologises, “Sorry I fucked up your dress.”
