“Stop that! We are not dating!
“All I’m saying is okay!”
“But in a hateful way!
“What?” He laughs.
“Rowan, please,” I rasp, leaning my hip against the table to hold myself up. I feel dizzy and hazy…and stuck in this life.
I just need a way out.
The waves in his ocean eyes calm, the current softening, and a small, sympathetic smile blooms on his full, pink lips. “I’m sorry.”
I avert my gaze and draw focus to the dough before it all blurs again. “We’ll go to dinner at your restaurant and then it’s over, we’re done.”
His hand slaps over his heart and he gasps. “You’re breaking up with me already? At least give me a chance?—”
“Rowan.”
“Okay, I’m sorry.” He chuckles.
I grunt my forgiveness.
“Hey, what happened the other night?” Rowan asks.
“Nothing,” I mumble.
“I meant what I said,” he says, inching closer. His cologne wraps around me—a scent that is only his. A scent I don’t know the name of and I wish I did so I could be a weirdo in the store and sniff it while I think about him. “You can talk to me.”
“If I wanted to talk, I would.”
Rowan sighs, the breath sounding pained and saddened. I wish I could tell him that I went home and stared at the ceiling in silence for hours. I wish I could tell him how empty I feel and I’d do anything not to feel it anymore. To feel nothing at all anymore.
His hand slips around my waist, resting on the center of my back. He rubs a circle, then another, his eyes begging.
If he keeps touching me like this…
“Okay, well, I already said goodbye to your dads because I have to go to the restaurant. They’re waiting for you to go back out there, okay? I’ll see you later for my lunchtime cupcake?”
Red velvet coconut. Sometimes dark chocolate with peanut butter frosting.
I swallow and nod, flitting my eyes away from him again.
Rowan rubs one last circle on my back before he slips away, and the lack of his comfort hits me immediately. But I’ll feel his hand like a phantom touch for the rest of the day.
Regardless, I can’t have him.
He can’t love me.
And I don’t know how to love him.
CHAPTER 4
Rowan
Ididn’t do it on purpose. Not entirely.
But I saw an opportunity, and I took it. Perhaps a bit selfishly, if I must admit.
