I was more convinced than ever that I’d hallucinated him saying those words on the ice.
“Right.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. Thank God for years of practice hiding what I actually wanted. “The list. Thank you for helping me complete it.”
Something flickered across his face. Confusion, maybe. Or disappointment. But it was gone before I could name it.
“We should go inside,” he said. “You’re shivering.”
He was right. Now that the kiss was over, the cold had come rushing back, and my teeth were starting to chatter. We walked back to my apartment in silence, water squelching in our shoes with every step.
I couldn’t remember the last time it had rained this hard, and I wondered if Mother Nature was having a laugh at me. Or was mimicking the feelings that were brewing inside of me because right now I felt like crying harder than the rain.
Once we were inside, I grabbed towels from the bathroom and tossed one to him. We dried off in silence, the air between us thick, but I was too in my head to figure out why. Maybe I just didn’t want to.
The list was done.
Which meant we were supposed to be done too.
“Hey, you okay?”
I glanced up, realizing I’d been zoning out. “Yeah, just really tired. Sorry.”
His brow furrowed as he stared at me like he was hoping I’d say more. “Can I stay tonight?” His voice was soft. Almost uncertain, which was strange for Liam, especially considering he’d stayed over plenty of times since school had started back up.
Every self-preserving instinct in my body was screaming at me to send him away, to start building the walls I was going to need to survive losing him. But if I was going to get one more night with him, I was going to take it. “Sure.”
We changed into dry clothes—him into a pair of sweatpants he’d left here last time he stayed the night, and meinto shorts and an oversized shirt that might have been his at some point. I couldn’t remember anymore. Our things had gotten tangled together over the summer, mixed up in ways that would take weeks to untangle.
I climbed into bed first, and he followed, sliding under the covers beside me. His arm slid possessively over my stomach, pulling me tighter against him, my back to his front. I grabbed his hand, pulling it up to my chest and holding it there, holding him close. My eyes closed as I soaked in his warmth.
This was nice. This was enough.
I repeated the lie to myself like a mantra.
His breath was warm against my neck, slow and steady, and I waited for his hand to slide lower. For him to turn me around and kiss me again. For things to progress the way they always did when we were alone together.
But minutes passed, and he just held me.
His thumb traced lazy circles on my collarbone, but there was nothing sexual about it. No urgency. No move to turn this into anything more.
My throat tightened.
We’d nevernothad sex when we were alone together—not since the first time we started having sex.
This was it, then. The transition back to what we’d been before. He was already putting me back in the friend box—even though I knew in my soul I’d outgrown that box and would never fit there again.
But the bucket list was done, which meant we were done. And Liam, being Liam, was making it easy. He’d hold me tonight because he was kind, because he cared about me as a person even if he didn’t want me the way I wanted him. And tomorrow, we’d go back to normal. Whatever normal even meant anymore.
I’d known this was coming. I’d known from the very beginning that this arrangement had an expiration date. That had been the whole point.
No strings.
No expectations.
No broken hearts.
Except I’d gone and broken my own heart anyway.
Because somewhere between the first kiss and the last item on my list, I’d fallen completely, stupidly, irreversibly in love with him.
