Page 74 of Level Up for Love

I’d gotten best in class, but I stay silent to spite him.

He goes on. “Do you remember when I tried to join your group during the last workshop in our final semester?”

“You wanted to sabotage us from the inside.”

This time, though a smile curls at his lips, his stare turns deadpan. “I’m not that cartoonishly villainous, Reagan. I am capable of some sincerity.”

“You weren’t that night,” I accuse.

His face falls. “You’re right,” he admits. “I wasn’t.”

“Because all of this, and whatever Owen said—it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t excuse the way you ghosted me. I—” I try to claw a hand through my hair, but my fingers catch in my curls. “I tried to text you. I called once, very late one night the week after. Fuck, Wesley, I even emailed you.”

I didn’t think he could get paler, but his face turns an ashy gray. “I know,” he says quietly. “I saw it. I deleted it.” His fingers tighten around my wrist, and then he releases his grip entirely and pulls his hands back to his lap. “I was so stupid back then. I didn’t want to hope, and I didn’t want to let myself be…distracted.”

He doesn’t have to elaborate; I understand. Whatever we might have meant to each other at the time, our creative dreams—our goals—meant more.

They still do.

The silence between us feels weighted with uncertainty—and possibility.

Maybe he was right when I confronted him after our first session—does this even matter anymore? Should it?

“Do you feel the same way now?” I ask.

I have to know.

“Stupid? Absolutely.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

Do you still feel the same way about me? I think.

Wesley is quiet for a moment. “It’s been a long time, Reagan. So much has changed. I’m not the same person I was back in college, or even last year. These last few months have been some of the hardest of my life.” He lets his head fall slightly to the side, his sad smile a little crooked. “You’ve changed, too.” He sounds admiring when he says it.

“God, I hope so.”

“In good ways, I mean.”

“Thanks for clarifying,” I say dryly.

So he doesn’t feel the same, then. I can’t decide whether I feel disappointed or relieved, but at the very least, I can be grateful that it won’t complicate things.

Wesley turns my hand over in his and traces the lines of my palm. “Listen. What if we just give it until the competition? See what happens?”

His earlier words echo in the back of my mind.

A tentative truce. Until the competition.

“We can be allies, like we agreed, and give each other feedback. And in the meantime, we…” His eyes dip down. I feel their path like a line of fire across my collarbone, tracing over where my dress clings to my breasts, my hips, my thighs. He lingers there, then flicks his gaze back to mine as he clears his throat. “We explore.”

After the year I’ve had, I’ve grown so used to jumping headfirst into these things. I’ve spent the year listening to my body, indulging every temptation and new experience I can. Anything to get me out of my head. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t aching to bury my hands in his hair again, to feel the mind-numbing pressure of his hips on mine.

All year, I haven’t denied myself anything that felt good—let alone this good.

And yet—

“This is a lot,” I say.

“Okay.”

“I need some time. To think about it.”

“All right.”

I stand carefully, like I can’t fully trust that my knees will hold me. His own knees still press against either side of mine, and he moves his hands to curl lightly around the backs of my thighs.

Gently, I reach forward and press my fingertips against his cheek, drawing them down until my thumb rests where his dimple would be if he were smiling. As if I could make it appear just by pressing down.

Lightly—so lightly—I swipe the pad of my thumb along his lower lip.

His mouth parts, and I feel the urge to bend forward and kiss him again. But I can’t trust the way my thoughts swim, the way the memory of him from six years ago is stained against the back of my eyelids every time I blink, overlapping with how I see him now. I have to clear my head.

“I’ll see you Saturday, okay?”

“Okay.” Wesley lets his hands slide down my legs before he drops them to his sides.

I shoulder my tote bag and don’t look back as I turn and leave.