Grey and Oliver come over to inspect the compartment. Misha continues to work on the dials, but I catch him glancing over occasionally.
“Good find, Amelia,” Oliver says, his tone even softer than before. He studies the symbols, his mind already working to decipher them.
We fall into a rhythm, each tackling different parts of the room and communicating through the puzzles.
Halfway through the exercise, I’m kneeling on the floor, focused on deciphering a set of clues, when Misha comes to stand beside me. He gives me a small, tense smile when I look up at him.
“Hey,” he says, his voice gentle but laced with unease.
“Hey,” I reply, barely above a whisper. My heart races as I struggle to stand.
Fuck.
“I’m an absolute idiot. I’m really sorry, and my hair is green,” he says, his eyes sincere as he stands right in front of me.
I glance at his black hair, a grin tugging at my lips as I understand the game. “I’m the idiot here. I’m really sorry about how I acted, and my teeth are blue.”
He steps even closer, one hand coming to rest on my hip, the other cupping my face. His touch sends a jolt of electricity through me when he pulls my lower lip down with his thumb, leaning in to look at my teeth. “Mmm. I think I just found the lie,” he teases with a small, playful grin.
His nearness and the feel of his thumb on my lip make me press my thighs together as a wave of arousal washes over me. But then, the memory of the car and the humiliation crashes in, dousing my desire like a bucket of ice water.
He seems to notice because he lets go of me but stays close, grabbing my hand and intertwining our fingers, making my heart ache with longing and confusion.
“Amelia, please don’t push me away. I know… I’m the one who did it first. And I’msosorry. I should have… I don’t know what I should have done, but I never wanted to hurt you. I would never hurt you intentionally. I care so much about you, and I don’t want to lose you. Please… can we forget about it and goback to how it was before? I miss you,” he says, his voice filled with genuine regret.
He’s giving me what I wanted on a gold platter, making it easy for me to say yes and act as if it never happened. But inside, I know that I can never forget it, and no matter what, they are so much more than friends to me.
I miss them too.
So much.
I can’t lose them either.
And if I have to choose between being lonely, miserable, and missing them, or being pathetic and pining for them while still being around them, I’ll always take the second option.
“Forget what? What happened?” I ask, trying to be funny, though my heart is heavy with unspoken words.
“Thank you, Bug,” he whispers, his relief audible. He leans in to kiss me on the cheek, his lips warm against my skin.
This friendship is going to be the sweetest form of torture.
THIRTY-ONE
The atmospherein our home office is tense.
Grey, Oliver, and I are seated around the large desk, our eyes glued to the screens showing Amelia working in her apartment.
Since I apologized yesterday, she’s back to being the Amelia we knew before. Today, we got her to eat lunch with us, and Grey took charge of choosing her food. As we sat together, we talked about the escape room we had completed first as a team. We laughed about the golden magnifying glass they awarded us for winning, while Grey just rolled his eyes at the whole thing.
Back to normal.
But normal feels wrong.
Oliver breaks the silence, his voice tentative, “Maybe we should stop watching her. It might help with the obsession, with the feelings. Maybe it would be easier being friends that way if we stopped.”
Grey doesn’t even look up from the screen. “You go ahead and stop watching her. I won’t. That woman is not able to articulate her feelings or watch out for herself. If I don’t take care of her, who will? She certainly doesn’t. She hasn’t even eaten dinner again. And Jamie is still off. I swear to God…”
“Grey, chill. You sound like a fucking stalker,” I interject, trying to keep my tone light but failing to hide my concern.
