“You’re lying,” I accused him. “You don’t mean that. You feel exactly what I feel.”
“No, I don’t,” Ace said, but his voice was wavering even more. He was…
He was scared.
“You do,” I said, advancing towards him. “You want to keep doing this. You want to see me again after tomorrow. You know that we’re good together. That this is… it’s mind-blowing. You know it.”
Ace made a helpless, casting gesture, taking a step back. “So, what?” he said. “Why can’t we just… just keep doing it? No one has to know if we hook up now and then. It doesn’t have to be serious. It doesn’t need a label.”
“Yes, it does,” I replied. I didn’t step after him. The last thing I wanted was for him to feel cornered. “I need it to have a label. I can’t do casual. I want all or nothing. If you want to keep doing this, keeping being with me, you have to bewithme.”
Ace swallowed. He looked to the side.
And just like that, he hardened back fully into ice in front of my eyes.
“If I don’t want to be seen with you, I don’t have to be. And you don’t have to put up with me, either,” he said. Like all this was my own fault. Like I’d brought this heartache on myself.
And maybe, going into this in the first place instead of telling him no, I had.
“Yeah, I don’t,” I retorted. Bitterness swelled through me, making my words taste like acid. “I’m not going to. I’m telling them I fell asleep in the room. You can say whatever you like.”
“Fine,” Ace snapped. “We need to shower and get dressed for the meal.Separately.”
“Fine,” I countered, but as he slammed the bathroom door between him I felt anything but angry.
I’d made sure, absolutely sure, that he wanted nothing to do with me – and now all I wanted to do was be the one under the water of the shower first, so I could curl up in a ball there and cry.
Ace
My eyes snapped open and I instantly closed them, regretting everything.
And I meant everything.
I regretted the too-many glasses of champagne I’d had last night to toast Olly and Keaton, and the shots and the cocktails I’d had on top of it. I regretted the wasted time sitting next to someone who wasn’t the one I really wanted to be with. I regretted our shouting match yesterday and the things I’d said, and that we’d had to bring it up at all, because we could have had one last night and we’d wasted it.
Most of all, I regretted the fact that I was waking up in a cold bed on my own instead of tucked in next to Brody like I had been all weekend.
I knew with a finality that stung to my core that this was it – this was how I would spend the rest of my life. Not waking up next to Brody. Until this morning – until feeling what it was really like – I hadn’t understood just how heavy and hard it would be.
I finally pried my eyes open for the second time, bracing myself for the pain of seeing Brody in the other bed and having to confront reality once and for all – but when I looked in his direction, the bed was empty.
A jolt of fear and panic went through me.
Was he already gone?
Had I missed my chance to see him one last time?
I sat bolt upright, glancing around frantically – only for Brody to step out of the bathroom, fully dressed, looking down at himself as he zipped up his leather jacket.
I cleared my throat, suddenly impossibly self-conscious. It was too late to lay back down and pretend I was still asleep, or I would have done that.
Like a coward.
And then I would have lain there in silence and waited for him to leave and pretended like every single second wasn’t torture.
“Morning,” Brody said. His voice was clipped and stiff like he was being incredibly careful with his words.
“Morning,” I said. My own voice came out in a croak, matching the woolly, aching sensation in my head. I was going to be feeling rough for the rest of the day, I could sense it.
