“You knew nothing!” His hands fly in the air. “I agreed with you because I thought it was the only thing that would save our friendship. You don’t get to stand there and blame me for this when you did the same thing. If we’re being honest right now, you shut down that kiss because you were scared I was coming to do just that. You chickened out. It’s not my fault that you forced my hand into agreeing with you.”
“Forced your hand? I was scared! Can you blame me? You were a flirt. You made out with girls all the time at those stupid parties, and I was supposed to assume I was different?”
“Yeah, you were. Because you weren’t like those other girls. You were my best friend. The one person who understood me like no one else. And the one person I couldn’t have. Everyone else was just a distraction, Tate, because I didn’t want to lose you.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
Tears sting my eyes, and I do everything I can to hold them inside.
“So that’s it? We’re just throwing away over fifteen years of friendship?”
“I don’t know where we go from here, Fletch.”
I can’t even look at him.
I’ve run from my feelings for so long to avoid this moment… and here it is… happening anyway.
He lets out a shaky breath.
“I guess that’s it then.” I look up at him, but he’s not looking in my direction. He’s staring at the floor, rubbing the back of his neck. “I should go.”
“No—” I don’t get to finish my sentence before he’s out the door. He doesn’t even bother closing it behind him. “Fuck.” I fall onto the couch. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I run my hands over my face as if that will make everything better. As if that will ease the pain. But I know it won’t. Nothing will. My biggest fear just happened. I lost the most important person in my life, and I don’t even know what to do now.
I try to hold in the tears, but it’s months of confusion, anger, and pain built up, and the second a tear escapes, the floodgates open.
How fucking pathetic? I’m sitting here sobbing onhiscouch, inhishome thatheleft. If anyone should’ve left, it should’ve been me.
Fuck, I should’ve never said anything. I should’ve just told Fletcher to let it go.Ishould’ve just let it go.
I close my eyes, run my hands through my hair, and try to pull myself together. The last thing I should be doing is driving home like this, but I don’t want him to avoid his house because of me.
I let out a quick breath, push myself off the couch, and—
“Fletcher.”
I don’t phrase it as a question, but I definitely wasn’t expecting to turn and see him standing in the doorway.
“I thought you left.”
It’s a stupid thing to say. Again, this is his house. He probably realized on the way to his car that he had more of a right to stay here than I did.
“I did.” He doesn’t move from the doorway. His head slightly bobs as he rocks on his heels, looking anywhere but at me. “But then I realized how fucking stupid it would be for me to just walk away. We’ve been hiding from this for years, Tate. Running. But asI was walking to my car, I realized the reason we were running was that we were both scared of losing each other. And if that’s going to happen, if that’s how this ends, then—”
His eyes finally meet mine, and my heart sinks into my stomach.
“Then what?”
“Then fuck it.”
My head tilts gently to the side, and my eyebrows furrow, not fully understanding what he means. But then he slams the door shut behind him and bolts toward me.
I don’t even have time to fully react or comprehend what’s going on before he grabs my face between his hands and pulls me into him.
The kiss is full of urgency, want, and desire. And I can’t help but sink into him. This is so different from the first time we kissed. That was two kids who used alcohol as an excuse to give in.
We don’t have any excuses for this.
