Page 126 of Hard Pass

I press my lips together, shaking my head, pacing a step away from him like distance might help me think.

“Okay,” he finally says.

I stop and look at him. “What?”

“You’re right.” It doesn’t sound like agreement. It sounds like surrender. “We should’ve left it at one time. I shouldn’t have gone to your house. I shouldn’t have pushed it.”

My chest constricts, because his mouth is saying one thing, but his eyes are reflecting something completely different.

“You don’t believe that,” I say softly.

The muscle in his jaw ticks. “I’ll believe whatever you need me to if that makes this easier for you.”

That breaks the anger and resentment I was holding on to.

“Don’t,” I whisper, tears welling.

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t do that.” My voice shakes. “Don’t make this smaller than it is just so I can pretend I didn’t choose you.”

He stills completely and I can see the part of this that hit him too.

He left here yesterday morning with bedhead, desire-drugged kisses, and fingers laced with mine stretched between us as he left until we couldn’t hold on anymore.

I’m not the only one who feels there’s more here than a casual hookup.

“I’m not trying to make anything smaller,” he says. “I’m trying to own that part of it that’s mine.”

“You can’t,” I say as the first tear slips down. “Unfortunately, you can’t fix this.”

“Then tell me what you want me to do,” he says, frustration bleeding through now. “Because standing here and letting you tear yourself apart over it isn’t helping either of us.”

I laugh but there’s no humor in it. “You want an actionable item? Fine. Go back to practice. Go be who you were before this . . . because you can.”

His eyes narrow. “And you?”

“I’m done, Cole.” The words feel like fire in my chest and burn when I say them. When I lie. “With this. With us. With whatever this was.”

Whatever this could have been. Because for a moment, I’d felt a sense of completion with Cole. That I had met an equal in so many ways—someone who both complements me and challenges me.

And maybe it took for this to happen for me to realize that.

Too bad we won’t even be able to explore it.

I see the flicker in his expression, and then he nods once like he’s accepting something he doesn’t agree with but isn’t going to fight me on it. “Okay.”

Oh.

There’s the word again and somehow it hurts more the second time.

He turns toward the door and for a second—just a second—I almost stop him because this feels too easy. Too final. Too real.

But I don’t call his name out because if I do, he’ll know that everything I just said is a lie.

He reaches for the handle, then pauses. “You know,” he says without looking back, “for someone who claims she hates gray areas, you sure hide in them when things get messy.”

Yep. That stung.