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“Declan,” I sigh. His hand is wrapped around my wrist. “It’s a bad idea.”
“We used to do it all the time.” His eyes are pleading with me.
“We can’t. You know we can’t. We had rules for a reason. Remember the rules?”
He drops my wrist. “That’s what you want?”
“I don’t want either of us to get hurt,” I say, snatching my pants off the nightstand and pulling them on.
He blinks back a glimmer of hurt and then says, “Fine.”
He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling while I finish dressing. He’s mad. I can see that, but I don’t want to explore the topic further. I’m too fragile right now. We’ve said enough.
I lean down and kiss his cheek, and I swear his body tenses just slightly. “Thanks for being a good friend,” I whisper.
He pulls his focus away from his phone and turns it up to me. His eyes have turned to ice. “That’s me, such a good friend,” he says, bitterly, and then he looks back down at his phone.
Chapter Forty
Declan
She’s waiting for theelevator at the end of the hallway. I nearly turn back to my apartment and wait it out, so I don’t have to see her. It’s too hard. It’s too fucking hard to be around her right now. We want different things, apparently. I think I made it pretty clear that things have changed for me, and she made it perfectly clear that they haven’t for her.
I’m not even sure what these feelings mean or what I want. I just know it’s unbearably painful to be without her.
She looks up from her phone as I come closer and gives me a sad smile. “Hey Dex, it’s been a while.”
I nod without a word.
When the elevator opens, we step on. She pushes the button for the ground floor and then backs into the corner opposite of me. There’s a storm inside me, and I know I should let it go, but instead I smash my hand against the emergency stop button and the elevator halts.
Her eyes grow wide. “Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?”
I step toward her, and she steps back until her back hits the wall behind her.
“Declan,” she whispers. I put both of my hands over her head, boxing her in. She just stares up at me with big, confused eyes. Her chest rising and falling dramatically with each breath.
