Sonny stood quickly, which meant he didn’t see me take a breath, ready to talk.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I get it. You didn’t feel the same and you didn’t want to reject me.”
He was walking further away from me, but the cottage was so small that there wasn’t anywhere to go. Two paces and he was at the tree, and it took up most of the spare floor space.
He kept his back to me, reaching out a hand to fiddle with one of the decorations, twisting it round on its ribbon.
“Sonny,” I said. I wished that was all I needed to say. It was the only thing I could articulate. Why was I so bad at words?
He took a deep breath and I saw it in the way his shoulders rose and he stood up tall. He turned back to me, a big, fake smile plastered on his face.
“It’s just one of those things,” he said. “I think Erik is great. You deserve someone like that.”
His voice cracked at the end of that sentence, and I was too confused to answer. I struggled up out of the couch, glad it was high and upright, with a high arm rest to give me leverage.
“What does this have to do with Erik?”
Even as I asked, I tried not to remember the taste of his sweet mouth. I was sure I was blushing, which didn’t help. Why was I so hot for both of them? I needed to choose one of them properly or I’d lose both of them.
Sonny’s smile slipped a bit before he caught it and hauled it back onto his face. “I know you like him. I can hear it in your voice. And you’ve been dating him.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“No?” Sonny raised an arch eyebrow, and I hated that I could feel my face heating up. Sure enough, Sonny said, “You took him on a date.”
“I—”
That smile faltered again and I couldn’t bear it. I stepped closer, almost pressing myself right up against him. Sonny was slim, but as tall as I was, and I could look him straight in the eyes.
“Sonny, I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
That adorable little frown came back. “But you pretended not to hear me. Why didn’t you say?”
“Because I’m an idiot.”
“Shut up, no you’re not.”
“Because I-I thought you’d move on. I assumed you’d find someone better.”
Apparently once I actually worked up the courage to talk, my mouth ran away with me. I could almost hear the words coming out of my mouth but I had no conscious way of processing them. I described to Sonny one of the blades that had been slicing into my heart for months.
“I saw your socials. All those photos of you on nights out, surrounded by beautiful, healthy men.”
I could picture them now, each one a fresh wound to my heart that took far too long to heal.
That frown came back, as though Sonny couldn’t even remember all those clubs and bars he’d been to, while I’d been obsessing about each image.
“Those were office nights out. None of them were dates, unlike the date you took Erik on.”
“Sonny,” I said, and reached for him. My fingers twisted into the soft material of his borrowed hoodie, and I held on, terrified he’d run from me and I wouldn’t be able to follow, too slow to catch him. “I love you.”
If I’d hoped, somewhere in the back of my mind, that Sonny would fall into my arms, I was wrong. He starred at me, reading my expression, for what felt like an age.
Then he nodded. “Yeah, you do, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You love Erik too, though.”
