“I read your profile. The Sugar Clarke piece. Audrey sent it to me.”
She looked at him again, her eyes searching, trying to figure out where he was heading. She recrossed her arms.
“And?”
“And…I saw what you said. About…about how you…love me.” He wasn’t sure he would be able to successfully get the words out. Her eyes widened, quickly, almost imperceptibly, before she looked away again.
“Of course I said that. I had to. That’s what everyone thinks, right?” Her voice was dull, unconvincing. He knew she was a better actress than that. She wasn’t even trying.
“Right. So you don’t, then.”
She said nothing.
“Grey. Look at me.”
She looked back up at him, the sharpness in her expressiongone, replaced by apprehension. He was seized by a fierce, overpowering need to get to the bottom of her feelings for him, right now, whether or not he made an idiot of himself in the process. He had to know. He wasn’t going to waste what might be his last opportunity to do so.
“If you don’t love me, tell me now. I’ll leave you alone. We can move on with our lives. But if you have any kind of feelings for me…it doesn’t even have to be love, if that’s too much. Because I don’t know about you, but it’s way too late for me. I’m already in too deep, and it scares the shit out of me, too. I just need to know. I need to know if you…if you feel the same.”
It was like time stopped. Ethan started to open his mouth again to equivocate, to soften the intensity that had shocked even him. She was staring at him, mouth slightly open, her eyes dark, gleaming pools.
The next thing he knew, she was moving closer, the distance between them going from respectful to intimate in a heartbeat, her hand knotting in his shirt and pulling his face down to meet hers. Then nothing mattered besides the feeling of her tongue sliding between his lips, the warmth of her body against his, his hands tangling in the silk of her hair.
Suddenly, silently, but with as much impact as a gunshot, a camera flashed next to their faces. They froze, and without thinking, Ethan released Grey and took off after it.
—
ONCE THE SHOCKof the flash had faded from her vision, Grey sat numbly on her front stoop, waiting for Ethan to come back. Thankfully, there only seemed to be one photographer at large. Her stomach curdled. He must have followed Ethan to her house. She’d never been bothered here before. She’d let herself believe she was safe here.
Her eyes glazed over and she brought her fingers to her swollen lips. Right now, she had something even bigger to grapple with than her privacy (or lack thereof).
Ethan loved her.
Ethan loved her.
What the fuck was she supposed to do with that?
More important, did she love him?
She’d thought she loved Callum, but the more time passed, the more she questioned it. Their relationship had been like a marble statue: beautiful, cold, immutable. The illusion of indestructibility belying how fragile it was. It had been so easy for her to skim over the tiny cracks in its surface, her mind filling in the flawless expanse it wanted to see.
If Callum was like a statue, Ethan was like a river: powerful and unpredictable. Sometimes she was one with the current, floating peacefully, basking in the sunshine. Sometimes she was drowning. The worst part was, she wasn’t sure which one she preferred.
She broke out of her reverie in time to see Ethan walking back up the path. As soon as he got close enough, she started peppering him with questions.
“What happened? Did you catch him? What did you say?”
“I got him to delete the picture,” Ethan said, sitting on the stoop next to her.
Grey’s eyes widened. “You didn’t beat him up, did you?”
Ethan’s brow creased in confusion. “What? Of course not. I paid him.”
“You did? How much?”
“Twenty.”
“Twenty dollars? He did it for that little?”
