I force a grin and stand taller. “I’mperfect.”
Rowan shakes his head, his eyes softening. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”
“I’m…fine,” I say. “Are you? Fine?”
“I’ve been better,” Rowan mutters, a frown threatening to pull at his lips. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and rocks on his heels, nodding slowly—awkwardly. “So you’re here now?”
I hitch a shoulder. “I came in late.”
“You worried me, sweetheart.”
I chuckle. “You’re always worried about me.”
“You worried me,” Rowan says again, frown in full effect and breaking my heart.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “I was taking a mental health morning, I guess. Um, did you need something?”
This hurts already.
“Did I need something?” His brows furrow as he blinks at me. “What are you doing right now, Nat?”
“Nothing. I don’t know why you’d think something was wrong.” I scoff, anxiously reaching for a rag to wipe a table.
“I didn’t before, but now I do.” Rowan takes a few more steps into my deserted bakery that I’m cleaning, on my own, to clear my head. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head fast enough to give myself a headache. “Nothing.”
“Natalia, sweetheart?—”
I flinch at the term of endearment and drop the damp rag on the round, back-and-white checkered table. “Rowan?—”
“Look at me, at least,” he begs quietly. “Please.”
I do as he says because it’s the least I can do, I think. Or maybe it’s for selfish reasons like seeing his face before he officially hates me.
“You’re about to break my heart, aren’t you?” Rowan whispers.
I’ve just broken my own heart.
“I think we should go on dates,” I whisper, slightly turning away from him.
“Oh. Okay,” he says. I see the boyish grin on his beautiful face. “Where do you want to go?”
“No, um,” I say softly and I watch the way his heart begins to crack down the middle across his face. “Not with me—not together, I mean.”
A ridge forms between his thick, dark blond brows. “Then?—”
“I’m going on a date and you’re going on a date,” I clarify—lie. “Separate dates with different people.”
Rowan blinks down at me. “Why?—”
“We’re only having sex,” I mutter as I pierce the knife through my chest and twist it over and over again. I think if I look down at my feet, I’d be standing in a pool of my own blood from a self-inflicted wound. “And I don’t…I don’t want you to feel like you have to be exclusive with me if you don’t want to be.”
“Only having sex,” Rowan echoes. “Right.”
I nod, shuffling on my feet, wanting to run away from this situation and take back everything I’ve said. “It’s a…a buffer.”
He blinks, again. “A buffer? What the hell does that mean?”
