His hands slip under my shirt, callused fingers drifting over my skin, leaving shivers of desire in his wake. “Jade?—”
I whip around and wriggle away from him. “No!”
“You’re the most important person to me.” His smile is soft, but there’s hesitation in his eyes, like he’s not quite sure of what he’s saying.
It just shatters my already-broken heart.
I can’t keep doing this with him.
I take another step back, increasing the distance between us. “No, we can’t keep doing this. We can’t try to fix our problems with sex and ignore everything that’s happened.”
“Then what do you want to do?”
I want you to tell me that you’re not going to that fight. I want to believe I’m the most important person in your life.
“I want you to leave.”
He nods once, turning and pacing to the front door, slinking away like a dog with its tail between its legs.
As soon as the front door is shut, I slump against the counter and try to pick up the crumbling pieces of my life, if only to stuff them in the Ezra-sized hole that is now carved into my heart.
I was wrong to think there might have even been a chance of saving him.
And if I was wrong about being able to save him, I’m wrong about saving myself too.
I’m fucking doomed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
EZRA
I standon the other side of her front door for maybe two minutes before turning around and shoving it open, the knob bashing against the wall as I stride back into the apartment.
Her jaw drops as she looks up at me with tears in her eyes.
I hate seeing her like this, but if she thinks this is going to be the end between us, she’s wrong. It’s not. She doesn’t just get to kick me out like I mean nothing to her.
We have to mean something to each other. I have to have her.
If I don’t, all of this was for nothing.
I stop in front of her, hands curled into fists at my side. “Fuck this. You don’t just get to kick me out because you want to act like a brat.”
She grabs a towel from the counter and hurls it at me. “Get out!”
“Nope. Not happening.” I stalk toward her, grinning when she starts backing away, trying to get herself to an escape route.
“Get the fuck out.” Jade glares at me like she thinks it’s enough to do something about the fact that I’m back in her apartment.
She rips open a drawer and pulls out a butcher knife.
It’s cute that she thinks she’s going to be able to do something with that. She might be going to culinary school, but I have more experience with knives.
“I’m not leaving. You want to do this whole thing with each other, but when shit gets hard, you’re turning around and walking out.”
Her hands go up in the air, the knife waving before she points it back at me. “You’re the bastard who doesn’t give a shit about us. I’m begging you not to go through with this fight. Not to get yourself killed. And you don’t seem to care. You’re rushing into it.”
“I care about ending this and being with you. If that’s going to happen, Noah needs to die, and your family is never going to be able to get close enough. He doesn’t trust new people. Fucking hell, Jade, he barely trusts me!”
