"I won't give you anything, Stel," I said. "Not until you ask me for it."
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip but then she laughed, a quick, fluttery sound that dissolved as fast as it appeared. "And if I ask you to leave me alone? You'll do that?"
Without conscious thought, my jaw tightened and a steel band of tension pulled my shoulders taut. "I will," I replied, hating the taste of those words. I'd respect her wishes no matter what but goddamn I didn't want that to be her wish.
She reached for my hands, squeezing them as she offered me a watery smile. "Thank you." She released my hands, backed away. "I should go now."
Those were dropkick words. They knocked the wind right out of me.
She slipped her hands into her pockets. The streetlights overhead illuminated the mist, casting her in a sparkling halo. It was strange but fitting. "I won't be on the trail tomorrow morning. I have too much to do before LA and I have to—"
"Slay," I finished.
"Slay," she repeated with a laugh. "But I'll be back on Monday evening and walking Tuesday morning."
"Is that your sweet way of telling me to stay off the Jamaica Pond trail?"
She stared at the night sky as if she was searching for the answer up there before glancing back to me. "Take all the things I've said tonight, all the things you've said. Spend the weekend with them. Come Tuesday, you know where I'll be if you still want to see me."
"All right." My response sounded like a question.
"We could talk," she offered. "Or not. We could just walk without saying anything. I do have some epic playlists."
"All right," I repeated.
Stella stepped toward me but stopped herself midstride, shook her head, and then continued into my arms. She hugged me tight for one perfect moment but quickly untangled herself, turned, and walked away without a word.
I stood there, rooted into the sidewalk as I watched her stride up the hill. The streetlights kept her bathed in golden light and misty halos. She was complicated, of that I was certain. Complicated and once again out of reach.
Yeah. She was the asset.
14
Cal
"Then he leansin and kisses her,Gone With The Wind-style, right there on the sidewalk with me and Riley watching. I guess we can say that when Hartshorn goes for it, he goes all the way."
Nick swung a glance in my direction before turning back to Alex. "Wow," he said. "That's unexpected."
"Why, exactly?" I asked.
"It really was," she continued, ignoring me. "And she was into it. I mean, for someone who'd just met her stalker—"
"For fuck's sake, Emmerling," I growled.I glared over her shoulder at the rowing team gliding over the Charles River. I didn't know whose idea it was to eat lunch outside today but that person underestimated the wind chill.
She gave me ayou're not off that hook yetgrin. "—she was shockingly into it. If Hartshorn goes all the way, this chick does too."
"If memory serves, you were champagne drunk on a weeknight," I said. "Not sure your eyewitness testimony is credible."
A gust of damp air blew her hair into her eyes but that didn't stop her. She held up a finger. "I was tipsy," she argued. "There is a major difference."
Alex stopped analyzing the shit out of me and Stella to zip her jacket all the way up and burrow into the fleece. If only she knew how much had changed in the thirty-odd hours since running into us on the sidewalk.
"She seemed cool?" Nick asked. He watched me, a cautious glint in his eyes. "Of sound mind despite all indicators otherwise?"
"Oh, yeah," Alex agreed, balling her hands inside her sleeves. "Cute, sweet, outgoing. She was great."
"She put up with your babbling," I grumbled.
