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“Why not? Whatthingsaren’t we discussing?”
Silas was on one now, his eyes blazing as he moved closer. I’d seen this side of him unleashed on others before but never on me.
I didn’t know whether I was scared or aroused.
Then he whispered the one question I couldn’t ignore. “Why are you pushing me away?”
“Si…” My throat was so dry my voice cracked. “I’m not. I’m just…moving on.”
He stepped back, widening the space between us. “Moving on…without me.”
“We’re best friends,” I said desperately. “I don’t want to lose that. But we should start behaving like normal best friends do. You gotta admit, Si, no one else is as close as us.”
He turned his head to the side, but not before I caught a glimpse of a tear tracking down his cheek. “And that’s a bad thing? Being ascloseas we were?”
“Yes,” I whispered. I lifted my hand to wipe away his tear but stopped before touching him. “It is if we aren’t letting ourselves be happy with other people.”
Si looked at me, not hiding the tears now falling freely. “What if we can be happy together?”
I was sure my body kept moving. My heart must’ve been pumping blood around to my organs. Neurons were surely firing in my brain. My chest was rising and falling as my lungs expanded.
But for a split second, it was as though everything had frozen.
“Together?”
Silas took a shaky breath before straightening his spine. “Together. You and me. Like a couple.”
I was frozen.
“Tell me you don’t want me like that,” he said, his voice shaking. “Tell me you don’t have feelings for me. Tell me you only want me platonically. If you tell me that, I’ll back off. I’ll never say a word about it again.”
I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t. My vision blurred with tears. “What are you saying?”
He stepped closer, his hand landing on my hip. “I’m saying I have feelings for you, Kai. I know you’re with Tristan… Hell, I’m not even sure if youdosee me that way. But I want to say you’ve got a chance with me. If you want it.”
It was like my greatest dream and worst nightmare coming true all at once. My words to Tristan just that morning echoed in my mind.
I think he’dbelievehe returned my feelings. That’s the kind of guy he is.
“I can’t do this,” I said shakily, stepping out of his grip. “You don’t mean that. You don’t have feelings for me.”
Silas’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You telling me how I feel right now?”
Tristan might’ve been right about the throat punching. But Silas didn’t understand. He was just afraid of being replaced.
“When did you start having these feelings? When I returned with Tristan?”
Silas’s forehead furrowed as he thought about it. I barrelled on, desperate for him to see things my way before the cage around my heart broke open because it had got the wrong idea. “Think about it, Si. We’ve been close fordecades,and you’re only just realising you have these feelings? When I finally have a serious boyfriend?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw as he stared at me.
“You’re afraid of being replaced,” I said softly, hating that I couldn’t take him at his word. “Tristan is in my life now, and our friendship is changing.”
“Our friendship is changing all right, but Tristan isn’t the one doing it,” Silas said bitterly. “That’s all on you.”
He was right. This was on me. “You don’t have feelings for me, Si. You’re just confused.”
“But you have feelings for me, right? Or am Iconfusedabout that too?”
