My fingers tightened on the edge of the counter. “The problem is clarity?”
“The problem is that I used it like a wall.” He dragged one wet hand through his hair and let out a breath that shook at the end. “I meant it when I said I couldn’t just hand you forgiveness like it was clean. I still mean that part. I can’t pretend whathappened between us didn’t wreck me. I can’t pretend I didn’t spend months walking around feeling like a fucking idiot for loving you.”
I flinched, even though I expected the hit.
His eyes caught it immediately, and pain moved across his face. “See, that right there. I hate that. I hate that every true thing between us lands like a weapon now.”
“Truth has not been kind to us.”
“No,” he said. “It hasn’t.”
Rain tapped at the kitchen window over the sink. A drop fell from the edge of his sleeve and hit the floor between us.
I looked down at it, then back at him. “Did you come here to tell me again that I hurt you? Because I know. I swear I know.”
“No.” His voice sharpened, not at me, more at himself. “No, I came here to tell you what I did with that hurt.”
That stopped me.
Easton’s throat worked. He looked almost angry with the words, like every one of them had to fight through his pride before it reached his mouth.
“I was someone I didn’t recognize,” he said. “After I ended it, when I walked out of Cade’s penthouse that night and decided I was done being the guy who cared, I let myself become someone I would’ve dragged off a woman if I saw him across a room.”
My chest tightened.
“I used girls,” he said, eyes locked on mine now. “Not in the way that makes it sound like I lied to them about forever or fed them lines, but I still used them. I let them touch me because I wanted you to see it. I kissed them because I wanted to prove I could. I let them think they were part of a fun night when really I was using their bodies as weapons aimed at you, and that is not who I am. My mom raised me better than that. My sisters watch what I do even when they aren’t in the room. I don’t treat girlslike props. I don’t turn women into collateral damage because I’m bleeding.”
My throat tightened so fast I had to look away.
“Aura.”
“I’m listening.”
“No, look at me for this.”
I dragged my eyes back to his.
His wrapped hand opened and closed at his side. “I did that because I wanted to break you.”
The words punched through the room.
He didn’t look away from them. He didn’t soften them. He let them stand there, ugly and alive.
“I wanted you to hurt,” he said. “I wanted you to walk into a room and feel your stomach drop when you saw me with someone else. I wanted you to choke on the same helpless, pathetic feeling I had been carrying since your mouth made a joke out of my heart. And I told myself you deserved it because you hurt me first.”
I barely breathed. “Easton.”
“I dismissed you every chance I got. I ignored you. I made shitty comments because I knew exactly where to cut. I stood there at Hockey House and let the room turn on you, and yeah, I was hurt. Yeah, you were cruel. Yeah, you used Gage to hurt me, and I’m not going to lie to you, it killed me. Even thinking about his hands on you made me see black because even with everything I was putting you through, there was no fucking way I would let another guy take my place.”
My lips parted, but nothing came out.
His mouth tightened. “But I knew I deserved your wrath that night too. I knew I had spent months making every room feel like punishment for you, and when you finally stopped taking it quietly, I acted like your reaction came out of nowhere.”
I pressed one hand against my middle, trying to hold still. “I wanted to hurt you with Gage.”
His eyes closed for a second.
When they opened, they were darker. Hotter. Hurt enough to make the air move differently.
