Page 31 of These Tears

‘Then?’

‘Then—’ I hold his gaze. ‘You’re going to tell me one truth I should know. One truth anyone you call a friend deserves.’

‘Friend,’ he counters, but I can’t tell if it’s with distaste or approval.

‘Friend,’ I affirm.

Those walls rebuild in an instant. The muscle in his cheek ripples once. He crosses his arms, the purple at his wrist stark against the porcelain of his skin.

‘One truth from me. One truth from you,’ he amends.

I slant my head to the side, searching his face. ‘I’ve been truthful with you.’

He cocks a brow, gaze demonstrably shifting to my hand.

My ring.

Shit.

It’s well past winter, and it occurs to me that I told him I was getting married then. Six months past the supposed date, I’m choking on my own words.

Something congeals somewhere between my chest and my mouth. I’ve spent months rattling his locked doors while standing with both hands braced against my own.

Unexpectedly, a thought seeds itself into my mind, and it’s not one I’m particularly willing to water: have I been part of the problem? All this circling with books and art and banter, instead of saying the thing that festered underneath.

I stare at my engagement ring and drag in a breath that now, stubbornly, doesn’t want to leave.

Maybe I’ve been hiding in his shadows because they were easier to hold than my own?

I tend to spit fire when someone calls me out on my bollocks and points at the dirt beneath the bed. Yet here I am, swallowing words.

‘We didn’t go through with it.’ It’s the only thing that I’m able to push through my teeth.

‘Who broke it off?’ he asks carefully.

My eyes stay fixed on the round cubic zirconia imitating something precious, as though enough scrutiny might force some truth out of it.

Then he steals what breath I have left and lifts my chin with the barest brush of his finger. His touch brings life to my cheeks, and my mouth parts as if that alone might coax the words out.

His gaze catches there. Neither of us pretends he’s interested in my answer in that moment.

‘I know it wasn’t him who walked away,’ he whispers.

‘Is that so?’ I raise a brow. When he doesn’t say anything else, I add, ‘I made him cheat.’ The words spill out raw. Unpolished.

He’s already shaking his head. ‘You can’t make someone cheat. You can’t make them lie and pretend.’

His fingertip stays at the point of my chin, the pressure feather-light but absolute. His eyes begin a slow sweep from the arch of my brow to the quiver in my mouth I fail to hide, and across the slope of my jaw.

This kind of concentration makes my pulse stutter. He must be able to feel it.

Judging by the minute darkening of his eyes, he does.

‘No man throws away gold unless he’s blind to its worth,’ he murmurs. Each syllable needles straight into my skin. Each pause pulls my lungs tighter.

His thumb almost grazes my lower lip before he seems to remember himself.

‘Leah,’ he warns, brows raised in mock warning. ‘If those tears fall, I might have to jump over that wall and go find him.’