“Oxytocin is what happens,” Xander says to her without missing a beat. My heart rate starts to thunder at this love confession riddled with chemical theory. But he doesn’t stop. “Love doesn’t mean losing the spark. It means keeping it alive.”
Then, he looks down at me like I’m the only person in the world and says, “This isn’t lust turning into love, Ash. It’s both. It’s all of you.”
Oh, fuck.
Fucking fuck.
No.
I try to look away, but I feel his hand on my chin. I stare at his frown, avoiding eye contact at all costs. Then he doubles down to make sure I can’t play the miscommunication card. “I feel everything for you.”
I shake my head at him. Repeatedly. Hoping the repetition will calm my nervous system down.
“Iwantyou, Ashleigh. God, I fuckingwantyou,” he says, and there’s a rich quality to it that cuts through the hum of the wedding as it fades into the background. Hillary who?
“No,” I whisper. I’m a Hutchinson.
“And Iloveyou.”
“No.” We don’t do love and lust.
“Yes.”
“No.” Even if I wanted to. I force myself to look at him, willing myself not to break. His eyes lock on mine. My heart beats so wildly out of control I think it’s going to throw itself up out of my body and flop around on the ground like a fish out of water. It’s official. He’s staring at me. And I’m staring at him. And what we have here is a stare off. I count my breath.
One.
Two.
Three.
There is no way I’m losing this stare off. Not after his love confession. I refuse to acknowledge it.
“Let me love you,” Xander says, again, losing the stare off. Again. I start to shake my head, to argue again, but he continues. “Things have changed.”
“What’s changed?”
“Everything, Ash. You know it. Everything’s changed,” he says, imploring me to … what? Agree with him? The only thing that’s changed is that we fucked. A lot. And I enjoyed using his body like a pillow. A lot.
Still, I don’t dare say any of this out loud.
“Your rules are officially outdated by new evidence,” he says. The evidence being Xander. And his big, beautiful heart. Again, I do not say this out loud. “That’s kind of the point of science, isn’t it?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, looking past him to really make sure he knows I’m brushing him off. But the truth is, he’s right. He’s standing there, real and honest, and when he says it’s all of me, a little more of my certainty crumbles. Because I know he means it.
“Doyouanymore?”
My eyes snap back to him. How did I not realize how close he was standing to me until now? His face is inches from mine. An invisible string ties us together, tugging at my heart. But here’s the thing about letting go of rules. You don’t just lose the logic. You lose the protection it gives you. So no, I’m not ready to admit it yet.
Because if I’m wrong about him, it won’t just hurt.
It’ll ruin me.
“So just to recap. You don’t have any feelings for me, and you, Ashleigh Hutchinson, will never, ever be in a relationship or settle down?” he says, staring into my soul.
“Correct,” I breathe out.
“Great. I guess you’re right then, nothing’s changed,” Xander says, stepping back, and his face crumples. He looks irreversibly broken. And the immediate regret I feel now that he’s put distance between us is palpable. “I’ve got to go.” He shakes his head like he’s shaking offme.
