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“Can’t make any promises.”
His gaze narrows, and he holds my stare for a moment longer, the tension radiating off both of us, but the longer he holds me hostage, the harder it becomes to remember why I want to hate him so much.
He keeps me pinned for a moment longer before finally getting up, and instead of being the perfect gentleman as usual, he just leaves me there, my legs and feet hanging outside of my apartment.
Izaac makes himself at home, striding through my little apartment and stopping in the kitchen, bracing his elbows against the counter and waiting for me to finally make a move.
Letting out a groan, I get back to my feet and kick my door closed, sensing his gaze locked on me, but what’s new? I can always tell when his eyes are on me. “I suppose you’re not going to leave now?”
“After I just waited two fucking hours to get through the door? Fuck no.”
Rolling my eyes, I storm across my apartment and drop down onto the couch with a huff, pulling my blanket up over me and pretending the giant asshole isn’t staring at me from my kitchen.
Quickly realizing that I’m not going to make this easy for him, he lets out a heavy sigh and strides toward me, cutting between the couch and the coffee table and dropping down onto it.
His knees almost brush against mine, and as my heart starts to race, I begin to fret.
I guess it’s time to face the music.
“You ready to talk about it?”
I scoff. “Which of my actions possibly gave you the impression that I was ever planning on talking about it with you?”
He braces his elbows on his knees, leaning forward and getting way too close for my liking. “So, you were just gonna hate me for the rest of your natural life?” he asks. “Or does this whole avoiding me bullshit have a shelf life?”
“You know, I haven’t really thought about it, but when I told you that I never wanted to talk to you again, I kinda meant it, so let’s just assume option one is the way to go.”
“Tough luck. That shit doesn’t work for me.”
“Tough luck. You’re not the one whose trust was betrayed. We’re not playing a game here, Izaac. This is my life. These are real feelings and emotions you’re playing with, and you don’t get to decide how mine are going to heal. I don’t think you’re understanding just how bad you hurt me.”
“That’s just the thing, Aspen. I do. I know that I hurt you. I fucked up, but pretending that I don’t exist and ignoring the issues isn’t helping anyone. For Austin’s sake and your parents’, you need to be able to be in the same room as me.”
I scoff, throwing myself to my feet and looking at him as though he’s lost his mind. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I say, feeling the tears prick my eyes as I pace in front of the coffee table, his heavy gaze locked on me. “Everything is always for their sake, but what about my sake, Izaac? You have known for years how I’ve felt about you. It’s not a secret, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve gone out of my way to hide that, to cater to everyone else so things don’t have to be awkward or weird. And you, you big fucking asshole, make a point to constantly remind me that nothing will ever happen. I get it, okay. You and me, it’s nothing but a fantasy. But what I don’t fucking get is why? After everything, after knowing exactly what this would mean for me, or how it would fuck with Austin, why you would even consider walking back into that room with me?”
The heaviest silence I’ve ever felt settles over my apartment like a storm cloud. I crash back onto the couch, my face buried in my hands, not trusting myself not to break.
“Believe me, Birdy, if I fucking knew, I would tell you.”
Grabbing a cushion off the couch, I launch it at his stupidly perfect face. “I told you not to call me that,” I say as he catches it and holds it to his chest. “And that’s a bullshit excuse and you know it.”
“I’m sorry, Aspen. I just . . . since that first night at Vixen, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head, and I know that was your first time, and you don’t really have anything to compare it to, but sex isn’t just like that. It’s never that fucking good, but with you . . . fuck, Aspen. Do you have any idea how rare it is to find someone so fucking compatible like that?”
“Wow,” I say, getting up and walking into my kitchen, desperately needing something to distract me and keep me from breaking right down the center. “So you destroyed me because you like to get your dick wet. Just fucking great, Izaac.”
“It’s not like that and you know it,” he insists, getting up and following me.
“Then what’s it like? Because for me, I was going in there to forget about you, because the prospect of me and you ever being together was so fucking absurd to you that I’d finally given up. I was there to give myself to someone else, to finally rid myself of the fantasy that I could ever have what I’ve always wanted, and that’s exactly what I thought I did. Do you have any idea what that feels like? I thought I finally had a chance to move past this and have a life, but noooo! Izaac fucking Banks strikes again.”
“Surely you must know that if I had known that was you the first night at Vixen, I never would have done that.”
I clench my jaw, glancing away. “Of course I know that,” I say. “I’m not pissed about the first time. I mean, sure, I’m pissed that knowing it was you takes away from everything I was trying to achieve that night, but it was nothing more than a shitty coincidence. It’s knowing that you stood behind me in my parents’ pool and worked it out but decided that you should keep your mouth shut. It’s knowing that when you were texting me after being at Pulse, it wasn’t because you’d finally come around and thought that maybe I had something to offer you, it was because you were remembering how it felt to be inside of me, how it felt when I came around you. And it’s knowing that when I went back, just as vulnerable as I was the first time, you still walked into that room, knowing exactly who I was, and took advantage. You had every chance to tell me that you were the guy in that room, and the fact that you hid it from me . . . fuck, Izaac, that hurts the most.”
Devastation and guilt flash in his eyes, and despite the distance I’ve tried to keep between us, he walks right into me, pulling me into his warm arms and holding me against his chest. His hand comes up to the back of my head, his fingers threading into my hair. “You don’t need to tell me what I did to you and how bad it hurt. Trust me, I know. I fucked up, and it makes me sick to my stomach. Nobody hates me more than I do right now,” he tells me as the steady beat of his heart keeps me from falling apart.
“Ever since you were a kid, all I’ve ever wanted was to protect you from assholes like me, but the second I got a taste, I needed more. And believe me, I know how fucked up all of this is. I’ve never invited someone to come back to Vixen before, but you? Fuck, Aspen. When I realized it was you . . . Nothing has ever fucked me up like that. You got in my head, and I didn’t know what to do, and despite being Austin’s little sister, I wanted to do it again.” He pauses as if needing a moment to figure out how to word this without making me hate him more. “I told myself that I couldn’t tell you because of how you viewed that first time, and I knew if you found out it was me, it would hurt and ruin that moment for you. But I still . . . fuck. I had you banned from Vixen so that you couldn’t come back and that would be it. Your memories of that night would remain as you wanted, and it’d never be brought up again. But then you said how nothing could compare to how it was with me and started looking for random Tinder assholes to fuck, and I just . . . Something came over me, Aspen. I know it was a shitty lapse in judgment, and I should never have walked back into that room, but the second you showed up at Vixen, all sense of right and wrong flew out the fucking window.”
“Izaac, I—”
