When I looked up, my cheeks burning and sweat dripping down my temples, I saw the look on Izzy’s face. He looked wounded, pain in his eyes, and I heard my own angered voice, echoing in my head.
“Izzy…” I said. “I’m sorry. I…” I tried to find a calm place, a way to apologize to him, but new likes were popping in on Instagram and making that annoying noise, each ding an anxiety-inducing reminder that someone new was seeing our intimate moment. “How do I delete this?” I yelped frantically, totally freaking out.
Izzy took it from my hands and quickly deleted the photograph. “It’s gone,” he said, tears leaking through his voice. “No one can see it anymore.”
I rubbed my hands over my face. My whole body felt shaky. There was no way to undo what had already been done, but at least the picture was deleted.
That picture. We never should have taken that picture. I didn’t know what I was thinking. I was never that careless, but having it on my phone and looking at it sometimes just felt so, so good.
This was the kind of thing my clients were doing all the time. And all the time, I would sit there, thinking how I would never get myself into one of these situations. How I had my shit together, and I planned to keep it that way.
“It’s my fault,” Izzy said, now fully crying. “I screwed up. You trusted me, and I encouraged you to do things you were uncomfortable doing, and now I screwed it all up.”
Fuck. This was even worse.
On top of everything, I’d hurt Izzy.
And hurting Izzy felt awful. No matter what mistakes he might have made, I never wanted to hurt him.
I was a horrible person. I was the asshole.
The urge to comfort him flared, but I was still dizzy with shame, for the picture and for the way I was acting. And even though I hated it, I was annoyed with Izzy, too, frustrated that this happened at all.
“It’s okay,” I said, forcing the words out for Izzy’s sake. “You didn’t screw everything up.”
“I did,” he objected. His backpack fell from his shoulder, landing on the grass. “You trusted me, and this is my fault.”
The despair in his voice finally reached through all the other turbulent emotions. I stepped forward and opened my arms, and Izzy fell into my embrace. We hugged each other tight, both trembling, while shame washed over me.
“It’s okay.” I said the words for myself as much as I said them for him. I wanted to believe they were true, even as they turned into whispers in my mouth. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
Our arms around each other, we stood just like that. I stroked my hands down Izzy’s back, and he clung to me, our chests pressed tightly together.
“It’s okay,” I whispered again, although I didn’t believe it myself.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Izzy
I laid in bed,flat on my back with a pillow over my face. It was Friday, and after a busy week at work, I was still just as mad at myself, fuming over the ways I’d failed Kai.
“I’m going to have to move again,” I groaned. “I won’t be able to handle living across the street from Kai after he breaks up with me.”
“He’s not going to break up with you,” Jo scolded from the kitchen. She was fixing us each a drink. She’d come straight from the wildlife rehabilitation center, still dressed in her standard jeans and work shirt. “This is just a rough patch.”
I tossed the pillow aside and sat up. “You don’t know that. We’re barely texting.”
“But you have plans to see each other tomorrow afternoon. Kai just needs time to move through this.”
“I know,” I sighed. I wanted to be patient. I’d thrown his private business all over the internet, potentially screwed up his career, and sent a hurricane through our sex life in the process.
It was only fair to be patient, considering I was the one who made the mess.
But just as fiercely, I couldn’t help but need him to be sweet to me again. I needed him to tell me things were going to be fine, and to run his fingers through my hair, and to offer me his smile.
I needed to know that I hadn’t just ruined all the good.
“You wouldn’t be so confident if you’d been in that car ride back from the countryside. It was the most painfully awkward, quiet thing I’ve ever experienced. Every time his phone dinged, I thought he was going to have a heart attack.”
