I lifted my glass and took a sip, letting the burn do what it could.
She stared at hers as the ice cubes shifted, melting into the cooling liquor. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I looked down, tracing a path through the condensation on my glass. “Because I was afraid,” I admitted, unable to meet her eyes. “I was in too deep, and I knew if I told you, you’d block me. You’d never speak to me again.”
She stared back, expression flat—unmoved. It wasn’t enough.
“And I wouldn’t have been able to explain myself,” I added, voice low.
“You mean you wouldn’t have had the opportunity to trap me in a public place and force me to behave. To listen.” She gestured around the restaurant.
Her words hit like a shotgun blast to the chest—accurate and excruciating.
“Yes.”
Tears welled again at the corners of her lashes. She tilted her head back, curls sliding over her bare shoulders and down her back as she blinked the tears away.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, the words too small. Too late.
She bit her lip until a small bead of blood bloomed. “I’d never opened up to someone like that before.”
Guilt twisted hard inside me.
“Everyone else…” The words fell away. “You made me believe I could trust you.”
“You can.”
She shook her head, disappointment overtaking the fury. “No.I can’t.”
Air came in short, shallow bursts as I forced my lungs to expand, contract—expand, contract. One. Two. Three. Again.
The tablecloth. The whiskey glass. The brick wall. Her tears. Her defensive posture. I counted each one, willing the panic to ease, the pain to settle.
Conversation. Forks on plates. Jazz weaving through the air. Her disappointment—steady beneath it all.
None of it helped. The tricks failed. Shame tore through me like shrapnel.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked—pleaded, really.
She studied me with a weary expression, scanning me as if searching for the man she thought she’d known.
I let her look.
Let her see everything—every regret, every misstep, the acceptance of whatever this would cost me.
Eventually, she sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I don’t know.”
“Will you let me try to make it up to you?”
“Damien.” She flung my name like an insult, nostrils flaring. “You’ve destroyed my trust. Lied to me. Manipulated me. And now you sit here asking for a chance at redemption?”
I dropped my head, staring at the creases my fists had pressed into my slacks. “I know I shouldn’t ask. But I—”
“You what?” she spat.
I met her gaze head on. “But I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t know if that makes me obsessed or insane, but you’re all I think about. Every second of the day. I wonder when your next message will come, what you’ll pick for dinner, what you’ll say next. I can’t get away from you.”
A hoarse laugh scraped out of me. “And the worst part is—I don’t want to.”
