A delicate smile pulls up the corners of her plump mouth. “Me too,” she softly admits. Her eyes penetrate mine and my heart starts going crazy. This girl does things to me I don’t understand. “You’ve done really well for yourself, Ryder, and I’m proud of you.”
“You are? I thought you hated me?” This time, I’m not joking around, because I need to know how she’s feeling and if there’s any possibility of an us again. I can’t get my hopes up only to have them dashed.
“I could never hate you.” She looks sheepish but sincere. “I tried to. When you left me heartbroken, I wanted to hate you so bad, but I loved you too much to follow through.”
“I hate that I hurt you. I hate that so much.” I hang my head, wondering how she’s even entertaining speaking to me.
“Ryder.” My name is a husky whisper on her tongue, and my dick twitches. I haven’t had sex in over two weeks, which is a new record for me. It’s not for lack of offers, but from the minute she reappeared in my life, I’ve only had eyes for her. The thought of screwing some other woman makes me feel ill.
Garrett and Micah would piss their pants if they heard my thoughts right now.
I look up when her fingers trail the stubble on my jawline, and a shiver works its way through me. Her touch ignites my blood and kindles my desire, and it’s not long before my cock is straining against the zipper of my shorts. “Can we sit down over there?” she asks in that hypnotic tone of hers, pointing at the cozy seated area, and I can only nod.
I take her hand, threading my fingers in hers as I lead us over to the couch. I always loved holding her hand, and that was probably the only good thing about juvie. Because we couldn’t have sex or indulge in any hot make-out sessions, the smaller intimate moments between us were so special and came to mean so much to me. I’ve never had that intimacy with anyone else, and I’ve never wanted to hold someone’s hand or just hug them and smell their hair the way I do with Zeta.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I ask, opening the lid of the cooler.
“A water would be good, thanks.”
I remove two bottles and hand one to her. Then I sit down beside her on the wicker couch, kicking off my Vans and planting my bare feet up on the footstool.
She angles her body so she’s turned toward me with her legs tucked up. “I owe you an apology. I’ve been behaving like an insolent little brat, which is embarrassing to admit, but it’s the truth.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been acting like a total jerk, so I’d say we’re even.” I unscrew the cap on my bottle and take a swig. The icy-cold liquid is like a balm to my dry throat and I drain it in one go, reaching over to the cooler for another.
“I’d like to start over,” she says, and I nod, silently encouraging her to go on. “I’ve just been very confused these last few days.”
She worries her lower lip between her teeth, and I’m reaching out, gently releasing her lip before I’ve realized I’m doing it. “You’ll hurt yourself,” I mumble, feeling my cheeks heat a little.
“Can we be honest with one another?”
“Absolutely. I never want to be anything but honest with you.”
Hypocrite.
I push my inner voice and the accompanying guilt away.
“There’s a lot I want to tell you. Some of it may hurt, but I’m not saying it to be cruel,” she continues. “I want you to understand where I’m coming from, because if we don’t discuss this openly, I’m afraid we’ll continue snapping at one another, and it’s going to make the tension unbearable around here.”
“I can handle it, and I’d rather know what’s going on in that pretty head of yours.”
She wets her lips in a nervous tell. “When you left me, I was devastated. I didn’t realize that when people spoke about having a broken heart it was physically true. I mean, I’m not saying that my heart literally broke apart, but the pain I felt in my chest every day was as close to it as one can possibly get without dying. Your loss was a physical wrench I felt in every part of my body, and it took me a long time to find a way of living without you.”
I’ve never hated myself more than I do in this moment, and that’s saying a lot, because I hate myself pretty much all the time. “I’m so sorry,” I croak. “And if it’s any consolation, my heart was equally broken.”
She laces her fingers in mine, looking at me through glassy eyes. “I don’t know if it is. I’ve spent eight years believing you walked away because you’d fallen in love with someone else. I blamed myself for not being good enough for you.”
“No, no, no, baby.” I scoot in closer to her, linking both our hands. “That couldn’t be further from the truth. You were always way too good for me.”
“When you told me the truth the other night, you rewrote our history in a way I never contemplated, and I don’t know how to process all these new feelings. Knowing you were hurting as much as me only makes me sadder. Knowing you walked away because you thought I was better off without you makes me so fucking mad I could scream. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
She peers deep into my eyes. “My head’s a hot mess right now, and I’m lashing out at you because deep down I blame you for creating this mess.”
She gulps, and a single tear trickles down her face. I brush it away, gently kissing the damp spot on her cheek. Her chest heaves, and a breathy little whimper escapes her gorgeous mouth.
I want to kiss her so badly it feels like I’ll die if I can’t taste her lips. But I rein my hormones in, because she wants to talk, and I feel like we might finally be getting somewhere. Kissing her could make her fly off the handle again, so I give my dick a silent pep talk, warning it to calm the fuck down. “You should blame me. Itismy fault.”
“I don’t want to play the blame game, Ryder. What’s done is done, and we can’t change it. That’s the issue.” She looks away, staring at the ocean in the near distance, and I rub little circles on the back of her hand while she gathers her thoughts. Strands of her dark hair lift, swirling around her face, and I can’t believe I’m jealous because I want to be the one caressing her silky-smooth skin. When she looks back at me, I’m blindsided by the wealth of emotion glistening in her eyes.
