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“Well, it’s true.”
Maybe it’s a bad idea to be this honest with her. I don’t know where things stand anymore. Trent was dead set on breaking her for good, on sending her running out of Clearwater with her tail between her legs. But he seems to have laid off that plan for the time being, so where does that leave me? Do I still owe it to him to keep my walls up around her?
Emma grows quiet for a moment, thinking about my response. When she looks up at me, her voice is soft and her brown eyes seem to contain a world of emotion.
“I still can’t believe you never told anyone.”
“About that night?” I ask. There’s nothing else she could be talking about.
“Yeah,” she whispers.
“That was just between you and me. You made me promise not to tell, so I didn’t.”
Emma blinks. “I didn’t make you promise.”
I knit my brow, resting a hand on the washing machine as I move a little closer to her. “Yeah, I guess you didn’t. Maybe I just made myself promise.”
“It means a lot to me, that you’ve kept this secret.”
“It means a lot to me that you had the courage to tell me. That you trust me.”
“I did trust you,” she says, looking down at the folded laundry. Her tone clearly suggests that she doesn’t trust me anymore. Although I guess I can’t blame her for that.
There are so many things I want to say in this moment.
I want to tell Emma that I wish things didn’t get as fucked up as they did. I want to tell her I hate the thought of her having sex with anyone else, because the only bed I want her to be in is mine.
I want to apologize to her. To promise to take her away from here. To protect her.
I know I can’t say any of that though, partly because I know she wouldn’t believe me. Actions speak louder than words, and my actions to her have been shitty enough to justify a lifetime’s worth of distrust.
But I kept her secret. And I know that means something to her.
“You can still trust me, Ems,” I murmur, even though I don’t know if my words are true.
Maybe she knows I’m offering a promise I might not be able to keep, because her expression closes, her gaze hardening. She’s building up her defenses again.
Fuck.
A flash of frustration fills me. I want to crack her facade, to keep her from shutting down and turning away from me, so I play a card I’ve been hanging onto since I first walked into the laundromat.
“What’s Trent up to tonight?” I ask, and watch as her entire body stiffens.
“I don’t know. Why should I know?”
My shoulders lift in a lazy shrug, but my intent gaze doesn’t leave her face. “Because it seems like you two are on solid ground again.”
“That’s not true. I’m not on solid ground with any of you.”
Her words hang in the air between us, tangled up in a mess of unspoken apologies, desire, and anger.
Jesus, that’s the fucking truth.
19
Emma
Reese is staring at me like he has something more to say, but he’s holding back. I want to push him, to find out what he’s thinking but not saying. But I’m already playing with fire by talking to him at all—and I’m not sure it’d be a good idea to know the full contents of Reese’s mind.
