Not because she doesn’t want to. Because she does, I can feel it.
I let my forehead rest against hers for another second, just long enough to feel how close we are to doing something irreversible.
“I know,” I say, even though every part of me wants to argue.
My thumb shifts against her waist once, almost unconsciously, and I feel her inhale sharply. If I move half an inch forward, I’ll have her mouth. If I stay exactly where I am, I still have her warmth. If I pull back, I keep her. That’s the calculation. So I pull back.
The air rushes in between us and it feels colder than it should. She wraps her arms around herself, but not defensively. More like she’s trying to hold herself steady.
“I don’t want to ruin this,” she says.
“I don’t either.”
And I mean that more than I mean our second almost-kiss.
She looks at me properly now. “You get that I can’t just… fall into this, right?”
“I know.”
“And I don’t trust you to not leave me again.”
There’s no venom in it. Just truth.
“That’s fair,” I say, because it is. I left. I chased something shiny. I built a life that didn’t have her in it and then I came back expecting the ground to still be warm where I’d stood.
Silence settles between us again, but it’s not explosive now. It’s tight. Careful. Two people trying not to make the same mistake twice.
“Maybe we just… don’t do this,” she says slowly.
“Don’t do what?”
She gestures between us. “The almosts. The staring. The nearly.”
I huff a breath through my nose because she’s right. I’ve been hovering around her like a dog that doesn’t know whether it’s allowed on the sofa.
“Friends,” she says finally.
The word hits weirdly. Friends means I don’t lose her. Friends means I don’t get her. Friends means I stop acting like she’s something I can claim just because I finally got brave enoughto admit I wanted her. It also means I prove I’m not going anywhere this time. And if I’m honest, if I strip the ego out of it, that might be the only way she ever believes me.
“Friends,” I repeat.
She lifts her hand slightly between us, eyebrows raised like she’s daring me to argue.
“Are we actually shaking on this?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says firmly. “Because if we don’t make it official, you will absolutely try to kiss me again.”
I laugh. She’s not wrong.
I take her hand. We shake. It’s stupid but intimate in a completely different way.
“Friends,” I say.
“Friends,” she echoes.
Neither of us lets go immediately. And as we stand there, I realise something that annoys the hell out of me: Choosing friendship isn’t me giving up. It’s me finally doing something the right way. And if that means I have to stand two inches from her mouth and not kiss her until she believes I’m not going to disappear, then fine. I’ll deal with it. Even if it kills me.
Chapter twenty-seven
