His phone rings.
Loudly, with the tone he has assigned to family.
Sab.
Or his parents.
Either way, whoever it is trumps the clusterfuck I’ve set in motion, and it’s how it should be.
I take advantage of his distraction and slip past him.
Tam curses, torn between me and his phone. “Don’t go. Please?”
I could scream. I bring both hands to my head, ploughing my fingers into my hair, battling the urge to rip it all out.
But I don’t go.
I step into my shoes, then I stand, rigid, while Tam darts for his phone and hate myself even more as the call rings out before he reaches it.
He comes back, phone clutched in his tattooed fist.Mamanlights up the screen, and I feel even worse. His parents don’t call much.
“Bhodi.” Tam drops his phone on a nearby shelf and grasps my wrists, tugging my hands from my hair. “Just take a breath, okay? Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.”
I almost believe him. But he doesn’t release my wrists. He strokes my pulse points with his thumbs, his cast brushing my skin, reminding me how we first met. How I knew even thenthat the skip in my heart I felt for him was dangerous. “I can’t fuck you anymore.”
“Okay.” Tam’s grip tightens. “But that’s just sex. What’s really bothering you?”
“Just sex…” He’s right. Of course. But hearing him say it tears me up all over again. Because fucking him has nothing to do with the warmth blooming where he holds my wrists, or the way his cinnamon scent spins my head. Or the concern in his gaze my soft and stupid heart takes for something else.
Just sex.
Just. Sex.
But it’s not just sex for me, and it never was. I liked him. I cared about him. And now I’m drowning in a potent mix of the two that feels a lot like love, and I’m the biggest fucking idiot that ever lived.
I wrench free of Tam’s grasp.
He recoils as if I’ve slapped him and holds up his hands in surrender. “All right, all right. If you need space from me, take it.”
“That’s the point, though, isn’t it?”
Frustration darkens Tam’s features, his brows knitting together. “Whatis?”
I don’t want space from you.
But I can’t say it. I have nothing but a big fat knot of wordless anguish and his phone rings again before I can even begin to unpick it.
It’s his dad this time.
Tam’s gaze bounces between me and the screen and I give him the out he needs.
I leave, and dash outside into the sleety snow that’s begun to fall while I’ve been holed up in Tam’s fairytale house withhim. The crispness in the air is gone and everything feels damp and sad, even me.
Especially me, and the empty annex does nothing to lift my mood.
I sit on the edge of the bed where I fucked Tam this morning. In the gloom, listening to the sleet turn to rain, washing the sparkle off the ground and the trees.
My phone buzzes.
