Rohan sat next to her. “Are you all right?”
She rubbed her face, then put her hands in her lap. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Pissed off, but fine.”
He took her hand in his. “Are you sure? He didn’t—”
Kamila snapped her hand back. “I’mfine, Rohan. I’m not a child, you know. I can handle handsy men. I don’t need you to sweep to my rescue.”
“I never said you were a child.”
“Well, you act like it sometimes. Everyone does.Oh, that Kamila, getting herself into trouble again.”
“Kam, why are you mad at me here?”
She exhaled. “I’m not. I’m just…angry. I totally misjudged Dane. You understood his character way better than I did. I’m such an idiot. I have no idea what I’m going to tell Maricel.” Ugh…she’d made such a mess of this.
Rohan reached for her as if he wanted to hug her. “Kam, you shouldn’t—”
She put her hands up, stopping him. “Don’t even say it. Yes, my puppeteering with my friends’ lives backfired spectacularly. But this is going to hurt Maricel, so maybe now isn’t the time to rub this in my face.”
Rohan blinked a few times, looking at Kamila. Finally, he looked straight in front of him. “I don’t know what to say to you right now.”
Kamila closed her eyes, refusing to acknowledge her tears. This week had already been so hard. So very, very hard. Now to add to it? Hurting Maricel and disappointing Rohan.
After several long moments of silence, she sighed. “I…Can we just not?” she asked softly, watching her dog in the distance so she wouldn’t have to look at his face.
“Not what?”
“Not any of it,” she said quietly. “Not fight. Not be awkward and weird. Not talk about what happened on Saturday morning. Notnottalk about it. Not anything. Can we just go back to being best friends?”
From the corner of her eyes, she saw him rub his chin. He hadn’t changed out of his workout clothes—short sleeves and athletic pants. So much forearm out—and biceps, too. “Isn’t Asha your best friend?” he asked.
She was jolted out of her forearm admiration and looked at his face. She had only just realized it—but it was true. Hewasher best friend. She valued him as much as Asha. Maybe even more lately. She’d been a complete wreck for weeks because she was terrified of losing him. “A girl can have two, can’t she?”
“A girl like Kamila can have whatever she wants,” he said. “Except…we can’t both talk about and not talk about what happened Saturday morning. The laws of temporal physics don’t work that way.”
She sighed, exasperated. “But if we don’t talk about it, then we’ll be thinking about it and wondering how the other feels about it, and it will make things different between us. If we talk about it, then we might find out that yes, we don’t feel the same way about it and it will make things hard, too. We’re in a pickle, Rohan.”
He chuckled. “Well, when you put it that way. We have no choice but to turn back time. I’ll get started on a time machine. I don’t think I can get a DeLorean. Hopefully my Audi will work.”
She smiled. Destruction of their friendship aside, Kamila didn’t actually want to go back in time, either. Because she’d needed him that night, and he was there, and she wouldn’t give that up for anything. But if she said that out loud, she was also exposing something she wasn’t sure she wanted said.
“We should probably put a name to it, don’t you think?” she asked. “Be mature adults. Make sure we’re both talking about the same thing.”
Rohan narrowed one eye, smirking. “You mean we should stop calling itit?”
Kamila nodded.
“Okay, fine. I’m sorry I kissed you,” he said. “We were both tired and emotional, and it doesn’t have to change anything.”
“Ikissedyou.”
He rubbed his beard. “You did?”
“You don’t remember?”
His forehead wrinkled. “Actually, I don’t. I was sleeping, and then I was kissing you. I don’t remember how it happened.”
Kamila bit her lip. “I guess it doesn’t matter who started it.” But itdidmatter. She knew without a doubt in her mind that she’d started it. Both times they’d kissed, it had been her. “Do you remember what happened after the kiss?” she asked.
