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I turn to face him, the mug raised to my lips, sort of like a shield.
“Hey.” He pushes back his chair and stands. He runs his hand through his hair, eyes moving over me in a slow sweep that makes me feel as naked as I was last night. He licks his lips and motions to the bowl and cereal. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“Yeah, I worked up quite an appetite last night.” Normally my sarcasm isn’t this on point first thing in the morning, but I’m deflecting some fairly intense embarrassment.
Kodiak cough-chokes, but doesn’t comment otherwise.
I move the bowl and spoon to the chair across from him, rather than the one beside him, to avoid any potential physical contact. I pull out the chair and sit, somewhat gingerly.
Kodiak looks like he wants to say something, or ask something, but doesn’t know how or what so he sits back down and says nothing. He also looks tired, as though he didn’t sleep well—unlike me, who slept like a damn baby. It was the same kind of passed-out-like-the-dead sleep I have post-extended panic attack. And I suppose in a lot of ways, it was, because I’d spent a lot of years believing one thing was true, only to be told something else entirely last night.
I figure blasé is pretty much the only way I can play this without having some kind of epic, girl-style fit that may or may not include screaming and possibly crying.
“Rough night?” I ask as I shake cereal into my bowl.
Kodiak is in the middle of a sip of coffee, which he sprays all over his textbook. He coughs a couple of times and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Seriously, Lavender?”
I shrug and reach for the coconut milk. “You look tired.”
“Yeah, well, I had a lot to think about.” He pushes the other container toward me.
I spin it around so I can read the label. “Cereal marshmallows?”
“You eat all the ones out of the Lucky Charms, so it’s pretty much Alpha-Bits by the time you’re done. I figured this would make the boxes last longer, and you can adjust the marshmallow-to-cereal ratio.” His cheeks flush, and the table shakes, likely because his foot is going on the floor.
“You think cereal marshmallows are going to make up for years of lies and you being a giant asshole to me?”
He flips his textbook closed and clasps his hands on the table. His expression is pained. “Are we unfixable?”
“I don’t know, Kodiak.”
He goes still and silent. His eyes fall closed, and I watch his chest rise slowly to the count of four, his breath leaving him even slower through slightly parted lips. It feels like all the air is suddenly sucked out of the room.
So much pain swims in his northern-light eyes when he opens them. “Can we try?”
“Try what exactly?”
“To be something again?”
“I won’t go back to how it was. I don’t want to be that girl ever again, and you can’t undo damage that’s already been done.”
He nods. “I don’t want it to be like it was before either. And I don’t think it can be, because you’re not the same. I mean, last night you were—”
I arch a brow, and he drops his head, blowing out a long breath before he shifts course. “Maybe we could try to be something better, something . . . equal?”
“Do you think that’s possible?” I’m not asking to be difficult, or a bitch, but because I honestly don’t know. I made him into a god as a child and never really stopped believing he was, when truly, he’s as fallible as the rest of us.
“All I know is that it’s torture being this close to you and feeling like you’re forever out of reach. I wanted to get over you, but I can’t, and I don’t know if I ever will, so please, can we just try?”
“What are you going to say to Maverick?”
“Nothing he doesn’t already know, even though he pretends otherwise.”
He’s not wrong. Maverick has always known there’s something between us, and yet he’s never once said anything. “And River?”
“I figure you can handle him.” He bites the inside of his lip, fighting a smile.
I turn my head and huff a laugh. “Making coffee and pulling a box of cereal out of a cupboard doesn’t erase all the awful things you’ve said and done.”
