“Nothing. I guess I should be used to your face looking like that,” Cassie sasses with an eye roll. But it’s not her eye roll I want. “You just haven’t glared like that since we got here and I was hoping we could make it twenty-four hours before you start handing out sour looks like they’re Tic Tacs.”
My mood doesn’t get better. If anything, it sours even more, to the point I’ve given myself a tension headache. She’s ignoring me, and she hasn’t been sly about it either. Even Ronan noticed something was off. He cornered me after breakfast and asked me what the hell was going on and why the hell Sloane couldn’t seem to be in the same room as me. When I told him I had no clue why—that his guess was as good as mine—he just scoffed at me, and told me to fix my face.
The worst part of it all, was that she didn’t sneak into my bed while they were here. So on top of her avoiding me, I haven’t properly slept in the last two days, and her smell is leaving my room at a rate I am not okay with. Looking back, I don’t know how I didn’t realize or clue in to the fact that she was sleeping in my bed every night. To say I’m pissed would be an understatement. I’m pissed at myself for not taking advantage of having her in my bed every night. I’m pissed at her brother for showing up and messing with our routine. I’m pissed at Cassie for taking her out of the house all day yesterday. I’m pissed at that goddamnned drunk driver, and I’m pissed at myself. I should have chased after her all those years ago. I shouldn’t be pissed off at her, but I just can’t help it. I just want to be in her orbit. To feel her warmth next to mine, hear her murmur to her plants. Yet all I have is the woman that I . . . I don’t even know what I feel about her. I just know I want her near me all the time and she seems to be avoiding me like the plague.
I’ve missed her over the last seven years; I just hadn’t realized how much. And over my dead body am I about to let her put distance between us again.
Cassie and Ronan are finally leaving after extending their stay by a day, and I couldn’t be happier. Not that you could tell by the frown that has marked my face over the last three days, but I give zero fucks. The only thing I care about is getting Sloane alone so she can tell me what the hell has been up her ass for the last three fucken days. Just thinking about not being able to be in her space—notgetting a smile from her, or an eye roll from her again—is making my blood pressure spike.
They need to leave, and she needs to tell me what I did so I can fix it. I can’t go back to how things have been for the past seven years, or how things were when I first moved in, I just can’t. I need her in my life, I just didn’t know how much until life threw me a shit hand of cards and I had to move in with her.
They finally leave after lunch, but Sloane quickly disappears into her room saying she has a headache before I can talk to her. Goddamn. This woman is the bane of my existence.
Eventually, I hear her quietly leave her room around eight thirty p.m.
Did she really think she could keep avoiding me?With a smirk, I leave my room to find her in the kitchen.
“You feeling better?” I ask, startling her. She clearly wasn’t expecting me to come find her.
“Feeling better?” she asks, scrunching her eyebrows in confusion.
“Your headache?” I figured she had been lying about her headache, but having it confirmed just makes me smirk.
“Oh, right,” she says, realizing I caught her in her lie. “I napped so it’s all better now.” She continues to lie, making the corners of my mouth lift again.
“Good. So you won’t mind answering my question then,” I say, taking a few steps closer to her, making her step back against the counter and tighten her hands around the edge.
“What question?” she stutters.
“Why have you been avoiding me?”
“I haven’t been avoiding you,” she quickly answers, looking everywhere but at me. She’s nervous—I’ve rarely seen her nervous. She’s usually all confidence and sass with me, always has been. Seeing her vulnerable does something to me. I want to reach for her, but I don’t want to give her an out. I want her to answer me.
“Don’t lie. You know you’ve been avoiding me,” I tell her as she continues to avoid my gaze. “You haven’t been sitting in your spot at the kitchen table, you’ve waited until Cassie came up before leaving your room in the morning, even though we both know you can’t sleep in past seven thirty.” She keeps ignoring me, so I take a step closer and pull out the big guns. “You haven’t even been sneaking into my bed at night.” At that, her eyes dash to mine, widening, and her cheeks turn crimson.
“What do you mean sneaking into your bed?” she asks, dropping her gaze from mine. Losing her eyes is like a punch to the gut. I want her attention on me twenty-four seven, three sixty-five.
“Don’t act coy. You know exactly what I mean,” I tell her matter-of-factly. “How long have you been sneaking in?”
Instead of answering me, she asks a question of her own. “How did you know?”
Deciding to give her something, I say, “At first, I thought it was weird that my pillows and sheets always seemed to smell like you, even after I washed them. But I chalked it up to living with you, even though your smell on them was so strong. I didn’t say anything because I assumed your smell was the reason I was finally sleeping at night. Plus, part ofme thought it was all in my head because of how much I had missed you over the years. I was honestly surprised when you drunkenly told me that you snuck into my bed every night.”
Shock explodes over her face when she learns that she ratted herself out. Then, shock turns into embarrassment as she drops her head forward, onto my chest. I hadn’t realized just how close I’d gotten to her. Her touch—even just her forehead against my T-shirt-covered chest—settles me. The anger I felt toward her for avoiding me slowly starts to dissipate. Wanting to comfort her, I place my free hand at her neck, holding her against my chest. Apart from combing my fingers through her messy bedhead the other morning, this is the most touching we’ve done since she kissed me all those years ago. Prior to that, simple friendly touches were the norm for us. A hug here and there, her feet thrown over my lap when we watched a movie, a shoulder bump. Simple, platonic touches that, at the time, I never realized meant more to her than they ever did to me.
“I’m so sorry,” she starts. And before I can tell her that she has nothing to apologize for, she spills everything. “It was all Jade’s idea. I told her that you had nightmares every night—that your screaming was waking me up. She knows how much I like my sleep so she jokingly suggested I just sneak into bed with you. She said she had read somewhere that sleeping with someone could make the nightmares go away. When I told her that her suggestion worked, she said she had only been joking because she knew I used to have a crush on you. But I couldn’t stop. I needed to sleep, andyou seemed happier once you were getting a full night’s sleep. And I’m so sorry . . .”
At some point, I just stopped listening to her. I swear I fall in love with her right then and there—at her words. She cared enough to make herself uncomfortable by sleeping with me every night. Unable to stop myself, my hand trails from the back of her neck to the side so I can tilt her head back so she’s looking at me. I don’t give her the chance to say anything before I crash my lips to hers. The need to brand her, make her mine, consumes me. I can’t go another breath without knowing if she still tastes as delicious as she did all those years ago.
I don’t give her time to think before my tongue swipes at her lips, begging for entrance. I don’t even wait for her to grant me access. Instead, I take another swipe at her lips, forcing my way into her mouth, taking what I want—what I need.
Instantly, I’m hit with her taste. She tastes just as I remember—no, better. She tastes like home. Like a white picket fence. She tastes like my endgame, like she’s mine. Like she’s always been mine. Wanting to feel every inch of her against me, my left hand leaves my cane to grasp her hip, pulling her against me.
The sound of my cane hitting the floor beside us has her recoiling from my mouth, as if I just bit her. Her hands rip away from my chest as she pushes me away, making me stumble back without my cane.
Before I can ask her what’s wrong, I see something I never want to see on Sloane’s face. Something I promised myself I would never cause again—not since the last timeI saw her cry because of me. I don’t have the chance to say anything, though. She pushes away from the counter, tears now quickly streaming down her face. As she looks at me and shakes her head, I can see she wants to say something but stops herself. Instead, she quietly walks away and leaves me standing in the kitchen with Gigi at my feet.
Somehow, I’ve fucked up the best thing that has ever happened to me—again.
