“Wait.” Breathless, she pulls away, until our mouths are no longer touching. But her hands are still on the back of my neck, her chest is still pressed against me, and her hips are too.
“What is it?” My voice is so hoarse that I have to clear my throat.
“What are we doing?” she asks, and it’s clear she’s not just talking about the kiss.
I don’t know what to say, because I have no fucking clue what we’re doing. I just know that nothing has ever felt so right to me as kissing her. Holding her. Breathing her in.
“Easton.” She says my name again, but this time it sounds different. Less soft, less warm. Then Rayne sinks back onto her heels and takes a step back. My stomach cramps and my arms fall powerlessly to my sides. She hunches her shoulders, and I can feel her tension. Whatever changed from one moment to the next, whatever made her let go of me, it’s not right. It can’t be. I don’t know what to say.
What are we doing?
I have no idea. All I know is that I want to do it again. Over and over. I never want it to stop.
“You’re my best friend, you know that.” Her voice trembles, and her eyes glitter with unshed tears.
“Yes, I know, but...”But we could be so much more, I want to say. But I can’t get the words out, and she shakes her head. She’s still wearing my hat.
“I can’t lose you,” she whispers, and I feel a stab in my heart. “I can’t...” she struggles for breath. It hurts to see her like this.
“You won’t.” It’s a brave, false promise, because I have no control over whether or not I can keep it. But I want it to be true.
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes, I can.” I can’t give in. I can’t.
“No you can’t.” She touches her lips, which are pink and a little puffy from our kisses. “If we do this... If we let ourselves be more than friends... It could easily go wrong. And I can’t... I can’t bear the thought of it falling apart and us ending up with nothing. You’re all I have left. I can’t lose you too. Not after everything I’ve already lost.” She talks so fast that she swallows some of her words, tears streaming down her cheeks. It hurts because I understand her, even though I don’t want to. I don’t want any piece of what she’s saying to make sense. But it does. At the same time, it doesn’t, because this is aboutus. And everything was different with us from the very beginning.
“Hey. Come here.” I reach out my hand to her, even though part of me is resisting saying what I know I have to say. Because she’s my best friend too, and I can’t lose her any more than she can lose me.
She hesitates, and that hesitation hurts like hell. But then she puts her hand in mine. I pull her close, and she leans against my chest again as though that’s exactly where she belongs.
“It’s okay. We’re friends. That’s all that matters,” I lie, wishing it were the truth.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to complicate things.” Sniffing, she buries her face in my shirt while I run my hands through her hair, the soft strands that smell like violets and citrus.
“You’re not complicating anything.”
“Liar.” She laughs again, and I can’t help but kiss her temple, just for a second, before I remember I shouldn’t.
We go silent, and I can hear her quiet breathing and mine. I feel her heartbeat against my chest. I have too many questions, and I can’t ask her a single one of them. Not now.
So I just hold her tight and try to convince myself that I’m totally okay with just being her friend.
Chapter 26
Rayne
Ceilings—Lizzy McAlpine
“Don’t pull with your free leg, Rayne. The turn has to come from your standing leg,” Zoe says as she does a perfect pirouette next to me. It looks so easy when she does it. So damn perfect. Every muscle in her body is under tension.
“See?”
“Yes.” I groan and lean heavily on my thighs, breathing hard. My heart is beating so fast it feels like it’s about to leap out of my chest. “I see what you’re doing, but I can’t do it.”
“No one can do it like Zoe,” Mae interjects, getting a reproachful glance from her best friend.
“Not helpful, Mae. Besides, you can do it just as well, and you...” She looks at me, a determined expression on her face. “You can do it too.”
