“Goodnight, Rowan,” she says, and I close her door just before I watch her drive away.
CHAPTER 7
Natalia
Iknow the days are getting worse when I start counting them—waiting for them to end so I can go home and lie in bed, and hopefully, perpetuallyrot.
I wish I could take a day off. A weekend. A week. A month. A fucking year. A break just to do nothing but sit with myself in the dark and watch some movies with Binx curled up beside me.
For now, I carry out the routine I have every day after closing. Close the register, bake, clean again because it soothes me, and then go home to do nothing. It’s quite monotonous, but I have no complaints. Although, most of my days take a turn when a certain, tall blond comes into my bakery for his usual order. Except for today, when I urged him to order one of the new flavors, with his red velvet coconut cupcake.
I really wish I could genuinely hate him and not just say it, knowing the words are empty ones. And a tiny part of me wishes he could just hate me too. You’d think that after all these years, he would stop trying. After the hospital and everything else I’ve puthim through, you’d think he would have been tired by now. But now we’re here, ten years later, and for some reason he still tries.
And I just want to scream at him,WHY?!
Why me at all? Ever? Even after everything he knows. After knowingme.A part of me hates him for it, for knowing everything he knows about me and still sticking around. Because that’s just who Rowan A. Asher is. The man who has done so much for me in the past few weeks, I don’t know what to do with the affection.
It confuses me more than I’d like to admit and most would think it’s easy. Boy likes girl, girl likes boy, and then they’re together. But I don’t think it’s ever that simple, not when one of us is still struggling this way—when one of us is fighting a constant war in their head that they don’t know if they care to win anymore.
I’m so tired. Everyday, I’m justtired.
Now, it’s finally eight thirty, and I’ve done everything there is to do before I slip on my coat, grab my bag, and lock the doors behind me. I trade the bakery keys for my car’s key fob and drag my feet across the pavement to my car parked just two spaces away.
I’ve barely pressed the button to unlock the doors before I hear, “Hey.”
I freeze with my hand on the passenger side door, hoping it’s just my head imagining his voice.
“Natalia—hey, wait!”
Nope. Not in my head.
I turn toward the direction where his smooth, deep voice projects from and see him with messy blond locks on the top of his head like he’s been pulling at them. His shirt is slightlywrinkled under his deep brown coat, his nose and ears tipped with red, and his blue eyes blindingly bright. He is as breathtaking as ever.
Rowan jogs to catch up to where I stand beside my car, the paper bag from Beetlejuice rustling in his hand.
“Natalia,” he breathes, the cloud of my name gathering around his mouth.
“Not today, please,” I mutter, my voice shaky.
“Nat—”
“Leave me alone,” I croak, unable to keep the tears contained. “Not tonight, Rowan. I can’t?—”
“Hey, hey, hey, no,” he says, his arm winding around me. I don’t think much of it for now. It’s a…friend comforting a friend. Right? “What’s going on, Nat? Talk to me.”
I wish I could ask for a tighter embrace. “Rowan, I?—”
“Please, don’t lie to me.”
I exhale heavily. “You don’t have to pretend anymore. My dads are gone and we can go back to hating each other.”
Rowan snorts.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He shakes his head, an amused gleam in his eyes. “Nothing…”
“Okay then.”
