I barely heard him callKieran, waitafter me, but I couldn’t wait. I hadn’t even gotten to tell him how I felt—he’d rejected me before I had the chance.
Maybe I should’ve been grateful. Things were a whole lot less embarrassing this way.
25
Felix
I sat staringat the door for so long that by the next time I took a tentative sip of my beer, it was warm.
Kieran was gone.
That was… alotmore dramatic than I’d expected it to be. I’d thought… I’d thought he’d justagreethat we’d be better off as friends, that he’d berelievedthat I wasn’t going to be weird about it, that I didn’t expect anything now we were back in Slow Falls.
I didn’t think I’d hurt him.
But Ihadhurt him, and now he was gone, and…
I’d just found him again. After all these years, after missing him for so long, after awhole goddamn book seriesabout how much I missed him, I’d found him.
And then lost him.
Like I lost everyone.
I was still wearing the hoodie he’d given me, and even after a wash it smelled faintly of him, and I suddenly couldn’t stand it.
It caught on my arms as I tried to wrestle it off, all the excess fabric in the way, suffocating me as I wriggled out of it with increasing urgency.
The sound of tearing made my blood run cold as I finally freed myself.
I poked a finger through the hole between the cuff and the sleeve, and burst into tears.
* * *
Angelica: where are those last three chapters?
Tuesday afternoon greetedme with a headache, a crick in my neck, and a sore back.
I’d fallen asleep on the sofa last night and couldn’t bring myself to get up until the afternoon sunlight hit me in the eyes.
Golden hour.
My stomach twisted at the thought. Kieran had taught me that.
Kieran was somehow all over this cabin, in the sofa and on the coffee table, hovering in the doorway, in the hoodie I’d ended up sleeping under.
Even in the heating I could hear humming in the late afternoon silence, working away to stop me freezing to death.
I’d promised Angelica the last three chapters today. She didn’t know what’d happened last night, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her.
Hell, I wasn’texactlysure what’d happened last night. I still couldn’t figure out Kieran’s reaction.
This had been a temporary thing. An experiment for him. The experiment was over—I’d even gotten more than I expected to.
Heshouldhave been relieved. He’d said himself that he didn’t do relationships, and I’d taken the pressure off him, hadn’t I?
I hit the call button beside Angelica’s name, rubbing the fabric of the hoodie I’d stolen between my fingers. A few stitches would fix it, it wasn’t a lost cause.
If only everything was so easily repaired.
