Silence stretches.
“Robyn,” he says, softer now, “stay. Eat. We had too good a day to end it this way. We don’t go to sleep without getting to a better place. You want to break the rule tonight?”
I don’t, but I also don’t want to admit it feels our other rule—the one about honesty, about transparency—already cracked.
“I’m only staying because I don’t want to work on little sleep.”
“Fair enough. I’ll take it.”
I sit back down, the distance between us widening with a pulse of its own. I fold my legs under me and pretend to focus on finding the remote while Nate disappears into the hall. He comes back a minute later with the takeout containers. For the rest of the night, I look at him—not the chest, not the hands, not even the mouth that keeps softening for me. Just his eyes.Something’s not right.
My sleep is restless, and all I can think about is how we didn’t get to a better place and I don’t think well on my feet when my thoughts are caught up in feelings I can’t untangle.
CHAPTER 8
The Solution
Nate
Rustlingand shuffling wakes me up. It’s past four in the morning when I check the clock. Robyn’s getting dressed on her side of my room. I fixate on the way her spine arches as she pulls the fabric of her shirt down her back. We had the perfect day yesterday. Everything we needed.Until you fucked it up, you idiot.
I get up and start getting dressed.
“What are you doing?” Robyn’s voice comes as a scolding whisper from the other side of the room.
“I’m dropping you off. Your car’s not here.”
“I was just going to get an Uber.”
“I know.” I slide on a T-shirt. “You were also going to sneak out without saying goodbye, weren’t you?”
Her silence says it all. She’s pissed, and it churns my stomach. Everything we’ve said since Tessa showed up reverberates in my head, pointing to something that leaves an uncomfortable taste in my mouth. I pull on sweats and go to her side ofthe bed. I run my hands up her arms until I’m holding her shoulders, squeezing. She sags, but not into me. As if she’s so tired she can’t bear to give up her strength for even a second or she wouldn’t be able to keep going.
“Robyn—”
“No, Nate.”
She turns around, but I keep my hands firmly on her shoulders. “You think I care if you hang out with her? I don’t. Why did you feel like you needed to hide it, though?”
“I wasn’t hiding it, I just…” I rake one hand through my hair, jaw tightening. “She’s a friend. That’s all.”
Except Tessa’s crumpled all boundaries, blurring the lines between friendship and chaos.A confession takes shape on the tip of my tongue. It’s bitter, ashy,necessary, but… Robyn’s about to go to work, the well-being of so many people a weight that she’ll carry. It’s all meaningless in the large scheme of things, and my words fizzle away to nothing.
Her spine straightens, and her chin lifts just slightly. “She was privy to something I should have known. I don’t want anyone having power over what we have.”
It becamesoclear over the weekend. I’m feeling neglected, alone. It’s shitty, because my girl’s trying to be a kickass neurologist so she won’t miss what her mom’s doctors did. I need to do better for her. I exhale, holding myself upright with my grip on her shoulders. The air between us hums, heavy with a tension reminding us we’re not okay.
I stare into Robyn’s eyes in the dim lighting—the high lines of her cheekbones, the soft curve of her lips. When she’s anxious or when something’s really important, she does this thing where her tongue slips out to wet her top lip just enough to leave a glimmer behind. I’ve watched it more times than I’ve watched the sun set over the skyline. Just like when she saysI love you. Or when she told me she’d give me a key to her place. Or the first time she saidyesto me. It took me threeweeks of standing out there at the crack of dawn and some bribing with the most expensive coffee on campus before she finally gave in.
“Alright, Mr. Architect,” she’d said, “Let’s show you a wild time.”
That morning felt like the beginning of everything I hadn’t known I was waiting for. Because it’sher. Hasn’t been anyone else since.Alwaysher. Even now, in the silence of her anger, she’s my anchor.
What the fuck have I been doing?
“I get it.” I step into her, close enough that my chest brushes hers, hoping proximity will help her believe me.
Her expression doesn’t soften. She’s both furious and thinking too clearly for me to talk her out of it. “I really don’t think you do.”
