I rested my forehead briefly against hers.
I wanted her.
Not politely. Not abstractly.
In her living room against her door until neither of us could think straight.
But sex with Emily would not just be sex. Not for me. Not for her. It would be trust and choice and exposure and all the things Hoka meant when he said “you do not get to build this alone in your head and call it love.”
I pulled back just enough to look at her.
“I can’t.”
The hurt on her face was instant.
My stomach dropped.
“Oh,” she said too quickly. “It’s okay. I mean, we don’t have to?—”
“No.” I tightened my hold on her hand. “Not like that. God, no.”
She blinked at me, confusion and embarrassment warring on her face.
“I can,” I said, my voice rough now. “Believe me, Emily, I can. And when we do this, you’ll be begging me to give you a minute to breathe. What I mean is I can’t do this with you unless you know me.”
Her brows drew together.
“I know you,” she said softly. “You’re a rich grump in his final year.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
“You keep saying final,” I murmured. “As if that’s the end of you and me.”
“Isn’t it?” she asked.
There it was. The real fear under all of this. Not sex. Not desire. The deadline.
“Not if you don’t want it to be.”
The words came easily.
The truth behind them did not.
I still had not told her what I was or what waited for me in Chicago. What “family business” actually meant.
It was the reason I kept my distance. I couldn’t take her being honest.
The softness in her face morphed into something more guarded. She stepped back first, putting a little space between us. That small distance felt wrong.
“I think,” she said, and her voice had become too careful for my liking, “maybe you should go.”
Frustration hit hard and fast, mostly at myself.
“Emily.”
“No, it’s fine.” She reached for the door handle, though she was already standing against it. “Really. I just… I think I misunderstood things.”
You did not misunderstood a single thing, I wanted to say.
