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“Yeah, but I want to see the finished project.” The lie slips easily off my tongue. We both know Calista would be ten times more anal than I would about the slideshow, but if I tell her I’m here to have a meaningful conversation with her, she’ll probably shut the door in my face.
“Oh, okay. Have a seat at the kitchen table and I’ll boot it up on my laptop.” She looks tired with dark bags under her eyes. I wonder how late she stayed up last night so she could be done with this project, so she’d have a legit reason to kick me out of her life again.
Not a good sign.
I sit down and she leans over me to put the flash drive in the laptop and start the slideshow. She even put the montage of pictures to music.
“I was torn between two songs or three. Three seems long for people to sit through. I mean, Aubrey and Declan will love it, but I’m not sure about their guests.” She sits in the chair next to me.
When it’s finished, I shut the computer screen. “It’s great. Perfectly them.”
“So, I have your seal of approval?”
“Would it matter?”
Her eyebrows rise. “Maybe you should tell me the real reason you’re here.”
I inhale a deep breath. “Our kiss.” My fingers tap on my legs. Suddenly, an antsy feeling comes over me, and I can barely stay seated.
She nods, mouth pressed in a line. “Yeah.”
“I really liked it.”
“Do you want a water?” She gets up off the chair.
“Please stop trying to avoid the conversation we should have had by now. Just tell me why you stayed up all night to finish the slideshow. Was it to limit your time with me?”
Her forehead wrinkles as she reaches into the fridge. “What? No, I just couldn’t sleep, and it’s been hanging over our heads. This way you have time to spend with your family and stuff.” She brings me a water anyway and sits back in the chair at my side.
“You’re acting like I don’t know you.” I open the bottle and swallow a big gulp.
Her eyes widen. “Then you should trust that what I’m telling you is true.”
“The kiss freaked you out. Just say it.”
She paces in front of the couch. “Fine. I got home last night and started thinking… remembering… and our past doesn’t allow for us to be so careless and stupid, Rylan. There will always be that spark of electricity between us that barely takes a flick of flint to ignite, but I can’t ride the roller coaster anymore. I crave the merry-go-round—stable and consistent.”
I huff.
She looks at me and comes back and sits down. “Do you remember when we ran into each other at UCLA?”
“Jesus, Calista, I told you that girl was no one. Just someone to go to a stupid event with.”
“But you never called me after that. And I know—”
“It’s what we decided,” I interrupt, my hands fisting on the table.
“And where will this go now if we continue down this road? If I had invited you in last night and we’d fucked on every surface in this place, where would that leave us after the wedding when you go back to Chicago?”
“I don’t know,” I answer softly.
“Exactly. God, Ry, I loved being in your arms again and feeling your lips on mine, but every time we allow ourselves that high, I crumble into the depths of depression afterward. I used to convince myself that it was okay, that I could separate the physical us from the emotional us, but I suck at it. You’re in Chicago, living it up, and I’m here surrounded with memories of us.”
“But you chose that!” My voice is loud with frustration. “I wanted you with me!”
She puts up her hand. “Just please accept this. I’m not saying this to hurt you, and know that I’m hurting myself too… but we have no future, Rylan. We want two different things. It’s time for us to finally move on from each other. Let’s tear down the roller coaster and get off the ride.” Tears build in her eyes.
“Fine.” I stand abruptly and the chair scrapes across the floor in the quiet of the cabin. “I’ll keep my hands to myself from now on.”
