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“I hate seeing you sad,” she says, and fuck, this is too much for me tonight.
Why is she pretending to care? She didn’t call since the morning she left my apartment, didn’t visit. I need… something. My eyes ache, blurring my vision, and I can’t breathe. I lift my hand, rub my chest. What the hell’s happening to me?
Thank God we’ve arrived. I throw the car door open before the car even comes to a halt and lever myself up and out. Out of there, far from her where I feel things I don’t understand, where I want her in every possible way and can’t have her at all.
“Seth!” I hear her climbing out of the car and coming after me as I make my way to the building, but damn, I need five seconds to pull myself together before I thank her for the ride.
Just five seconds. Just a moment to catch my breath.
But before I can, her hand is on my arm and my lungs lock up again. My breath hitches. I turn, slip my hand around her waist, pull her to me. I feel like I’ll fucking die if I don’t get to kiss her, to hold her.
If she turns around now and leaves.
She doesn’t. Instead she leans into me, sighing softly, and time stops. Her soft breasts press into my chest, her head rests on my shoulder, and the night fades around us—the buildings, the street, the cars, the stars. I inhale the scent of her hair and my chest loosens, my heart calms.
But it’s over too soon.
“Let’s get you upstairs.” She pulls away, avoiding my gaze, breaking the fragile illusion.
***
Anger helps me climb the stairs with less trouble than usual. Of course my knee is better now, too. Less swollen and painful.
If she’d had to help me, I’d be fucking mortified. She’s helped me enough. I can do this on my own.
Can you, now? Goddamn liar.
I grind my teeth and fish in the pocket of my jeans for the door keys. The brief moment I held her against me only serves to haunt me. To mock me with all the possibilities even if I know they aren’t fucking real.
Focus on what’s real, Seffers.
Monday I got an interview for a job at a fast food joint. The odds are good. Plus, now my leg’s better, I should go back to training at Damage. Maybe take Rafe up on his offer to help me exercise, strengthen the muscles above my bad knee.
This is good. This is what I need.
I push the door open and hobble into the dimness of my apartment. It’s cold. Empty. I stop by the worn couch and turn toward her. She’s standing right inside the door, her expression unreadable. She glances back at the stairwell.
She’s leaving. I know it. I see it. Of course she is.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say, and I don’t think I can even walk to the bed, the last of my energy zapped. I walk around the sofa and sink in it, plonk my keys and wallet on the scratched coffee table. Maybe I’ll sleep here tonight. Or try to, at least. “You should go back to your friends. Your boyfriend must be looking for you.”
“Nah, I doubt that.”
I look up, narrow my eyes. “Didn’t you leave him at the party?”
“No, he went off to meet his friends.”
“And he didn’t invite you along?”
“He did. I didn’t want to join him.”
She’s still standing at the open door, as if undecided what to do.
“Is everything okay between you two?”
Yeah, I can’t stop myself from asking. It’s like scratching at scabs, opening the wound. Letting the blood flow.
Strangely, my question seems to make up her mind, and she steps all the way inside. Closing the door with a soft click, she approaches me, her steps small, her hips swaying lightly. I watch her, hypnotized, breath caught, as she makes her way to me and sits down beside me.
