Page 65 of The Endless Want

I groan, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Leave it.”

“No. Because you look like a kicked dog, and that means she said something, did something, or breathed near you in a way your fragile ego couldn’t handle.”

My laugh is sharp, bitter. “My ego’s fine.”

“Is it?” he asks. “Because I heard Mira tried to dance on you tonight.”

I glare at him. “Who told you that?”

“Declan, please. Half the crew saw. The story made it upstairs before the liquor even settled in your bloodstream.”

I sink deeper into the cushions, suddenly exhausted. “It was nothing.”

“I’ll bet it wasn’t nothing to Ailish.”

The way he says it—gentle, knowing—makes something twist under my ribs. I take a long drag from the cigarette I light. The smoke steadies me. Barely. “I didn’t ask Mira to do it.”

“Didn’t stop her, either,” Conor points out. “And you let Ailish see.”

The guilt claws deeper. “She wouldn’t leave it alone. She kept trying to talk to me.”

“And you wouldn’t let her.” He levels a look at me. “Which is your choice. But don’t pretend you didn’t want a reaction.”

I close my eyes. “It wasn’t like that.”

His tone shifts—softening, sharpening all at once. “Declan… you’ve never gotten over her.”

“Bullshit.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he says quietly. “Not to me.”

I open my eyes and stare at the cracked ceiling. “She lied to me. She schemed behind my back. She⁠—”

“She also saved your life twice,” he interrupts. “And you know it.”

I inhale sharply, smoke burning in my lungs. Conor leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Let me ask you something. Do you want her safe?”

I give him a withering look. “Obviously.”

“Do you want her close?”

The air thickens. “Conor,” I warn.

“Do you want her as far away from danger as possible, but you follow her with your eyes every time she walks into a room because you can’t help it?”

I drop the cigarette into the glass dish, smoke curling from the tip like a taunt. “Don’t psychoanalyze me.”

“Declan, you look at her the same way you used to look at your first gun—like you don’t trust it not to go off, but you can’t stop touching it either.”

A strangled noise escapes me. “Christ, Conor.”

“You love her,” he says plainly. “You never stopped.”

I sit upright with a violent jolt. “No. I don’t.”

He stares at me for a long, heavy second, then says, “You’re a shit liar.”

I want to punch something—maybe him, maybe a wall, maybe the version of myself five years ago who didn’t see any of this coming. Instead, I sink back into the couch, the cushions swallowing my anger like quicksand.