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I paced around, walking on my heels, trying to calm down. What the hell was wrong with me? It was that night with Kaylee all over again, but this time, I wasn’t laughing it off. We weren’t running from an old man with a shotgun, drinking moonshine on a dirt road, stumbling home together. No. There was a very real possibility I’d have to endure Nate hooking up with Miranda while I tried not to die.
Fuck, the image was too much.
I locked myself in the bathroom, replaced my swim shorts with boxers, and doused my face and chest with water to chill this heat burning me up. The whole situation was weird. Even before I’d admitted to having a thing for him, we’d had a staring contest and a tug-o-war type battle at Kaylee’s place that night. Then I confessed my truth—like everyone told me to—and he’d blown up on me. But now he was having the same staring contest with me, and I didn’t know what it meant.
Was he proving to me that he could secure a hookup on his own?
Was he trying to rile me?
Was he calling my bluff?
I didn’t know, but the lesson that hit home the hardest was that Nate had learned he was a one-man show. Together, we were a dynamic joke of a duo, but on his own, he was Nathan Neegan Sawyer, finally getting the spotlight he deserved without me.
The self-loathing I felt was too much to bear, and I couldn’t fathom looking at the pathetic person in the mirror, so I ate my jealousy and left the bathroom. I needed to sleep and block out the rest of the night.
But I came chest to chest with Nate in the narrow hallway instead.
I wasn’t a huge talker, but I’d never had a filter with Nate or Maddox, so when his eyes met mine, drunkenness made me blurt, “You can fuck her outside. She’s not coming in here.” I tried to push past him, but he blocked my exit. “Nate!” I screamed at him, choking on a mix of jealousy, rage, pettiness, and fear. “Let me go.”
“No,” he growled.Growled.His blond hair was a fucked-up mess, his eyes were blue eight balls that told shoddy truths, and his lips glistened in the wake of his tongue.
“Nate,” I seethed. Begged.
“Xavi,” he seethed back.
I couldn’t take hearing my name in that tone, so I made everything worse. “Better go get your dick sucked before she finds someone else. Like you said, this thing is over, so by all means, go have fun.”
I shoved my shoulder against his chest and pushed, but he took a side-step and forced me back against the wall. My breathing turned shallow and rapid, and I had no idea if I was too drunk for a panic attack or if I’d even know what a panic attack was if it sprung up and attacked me in a tiny hallway. Everything was all confused and amplified, and none of it was clear.
“I miss you,” Nate said, deflating me and pausing my panic. “I fucking miss you.”
I didn’t know what to say, but those words cracked something inside me. Like all my sadness wanted to come out and weep all over the place, but my anger was still there, acting like a dam. I missed him, too. So fucking much my life had been in ruins for the past few days, but I couldn’t do this right now. I couldn’t be drunk while facing my biggest truth, half angry, half sad, and wholly terrified of saying the wrong thing again.
“Nate, please.” I pressed my knuckles to his abs to back him up, but all it did was make his eyes drop down to look at where I touched him.
“Please, what?” he asked, voice softer.
Please fix this. Please fix us. Please be mine again. “Please let me go.”
My knuckles fell from his stomach, and his shoulders drooped. With a deep breath, he nodded.
CHAPTER9
NATE
Chills radiatedfrom where his hand touched me, but actual coldness took its place when he dropped his knuckles away.
I nodded, trying to back off and give him what he needed. His eyes met mine, and the pain in them cracked me right in half.
I think I scared her off by accidentally admitting I have a thing for you.
His admission had been my snapped tether, but the absence of our friendship was my downfall. Thing or no thing, reciprocated feelings or not, miscommunication or clear communication, I needed Xavi, and I wouldn’t survive him walking out on me again.Iwouldn’t be able to walk away fromhimagain.
When he swallowed and started to go by me, I let him go.
Almost.The hall intervened.
Our chests brushed, our knees jammed, and I tried hard not to step on his broken toe. “Xavi, wait.”Because I owned my fuck up from before, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d make the same mistake twice.
