“Forget about it, Vivienne.”
With a bump of my hip, the stall bursts open to reveal a glowering Nate. This is the least friendly I’ve seen him since we’ve met, but I walk in nonetheless, locking the door behind us.
“Respectfully, Nate,no, I won’t forget about it. You stood me up for our fake date, and where were you the whole time? A sweat hole!”
Nate exhales sharply, mumbling a string of curse words as he drags a hand through his soaked hair. “It’s done. It’s over. We missed it—that’s it. Now, can you please leave so I can get dressed?” he grits out.
“Well, since you said please…Absolutely!” I flash him a smile before shoving him onto the floating bench. “Not.”
Nate grunts in response. Despite the satisfaction I feel for getting to be the one looking down at him, he still won’t cooperate.
“I’m not dropping this until you tell me what’s wrong. You left me stranded by the sidewalk and took time away from my day, my chemistry, and my experiments. Put yourself in my shoes. How would you feel, Nate?”
“Apologies,” he mutters, resting against the black marble and fixing his gaze on the ceiling.
He’s refusing to answer, but I won’t let him get away with this.
I step between his legs and lean until I’m in his field of vision. He jerks his face to the side with a grunt, but I grasp his jaw, turning it back toward me. His green eyes flick between my lips and my eyes, a heat burning within them, and suddenly I'm overcome by the urge to kiss him again.
“Tell me why you stood me up. If your reason is good enough, I might forgive you.”
Nate angles his head away, the expression on his face caught somewhere between want and ache. “I don’t need to tell you anything.”
Though he still won’t look at me, I plant my hands on my hips and quirk a brow. “Is that really how you want this fake engagement to work? We fight, make up, then fight again? If you want to save your reputation, weneedbetter communication.”
Nate’s dark eyes pin me with the same hard stare I gave him earlier, before it slips, edged with defeat. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“What is?” I ask.
He shakes his head in refusal—obviously, not wanting to get into it. It’s written all over his face. He wants to fight this—fight me—but he needs to let go.
“You can trust me,” I assure him.
“Can I really?” he asks, still facing away from me.
I nod in approval. “Believe it or not, we’re in this together. We might be facing different challenges, but both our lives are crumbling. If we’re stuck together for the next six months—it’s best we start working as a team."
Nate meets my eyes in a candor so disarming that it feels like he’s stripping every layer of pretense between us. “Give me one good reason.”
I take a second to think that one through before settling on, “We’re friends.”
“Friends, huh?” He scoffs in disbelief, a bittersweet smile painting his lips.
And honestly, I get it.
As much as I’ve tried to convince myself otherwise, one thing’s clear—kissing a friend shouldn’t feel like that.
Never in my life have I felt fireworks go off at the touch of someone’s lips on mine. But the rules we made in the pizza shop were set in place for a reason. Everyone I love, I end up losing, and I can’t add another name to that list.
“It’s better than enemies,” I reason.
“I’d much rather we go back to hating each other.”
I give him a pointed look, and eventually, his armor drops.
“There’s new competition in town, and he’s making Archer Aviation look worse than it already is.” Nate takes in a deep, ragged breath, but I stay quiet.
There’s no need to push him. He’ll open up by himself.
