Page 30 of Serving Bunt

Heat crawled up my neck. The frustration from the barn was still boiling under my skin, but it went a lot deeper than that.

And we both knew it.

“This isn’t just about today, is it?”

I took a step closer, lowering my voice even though nobody else was around.

“You wrote stories about me. About us. And then, you spent months texting me as if you were someone else. Flirting with me, making me feel things I had never felt for a guy before, all while knowing exactly who I was.”

My hands were shaking.

“And then you kissed me. You kissed me like you meant it, like maybe you wanted the same things I was starting to want, and I—”

My voice cracked.

I forced myself to look away before he could see too much, dragging in a sharp breath that did nothing to steady me.

“Matty—”

“Wait, please. I need to get the rest out.”

Diaz nodded. It was what came next, though, that really floored me.

He stayed quiet.

The man who filled rooms by nature and turned strangers into friends in five minutes flat was letting me have my moment and, more than that, allowing me to stumble through it at my own pace.

And lord help me, that almost undid me more than his kiss.

“I ran because I was scared,” I told him, evening out my tone. “And hurt. And confused as all hell. And instead of giving me space or time to figure it out, you just kept being . . . you. Acting like nothing had happened. Like we could just go back to being teammates and pretend the rest doesn’t exist.”

Diaz opened his mouth, but I kept going, the words pouring out now that the dam had broken.

“And now, I’m stuck wondering if any of it was real or if maybe, I’m just another idiot who fell for the Peter Diaz charm special.”

I laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Don’t do that.”

His voice was rough, almost angry.

“Don’t you dare stand there and call yourself an idiot for feeling what you felt. For wanting what we had. That’s not fair to you, and it sure as hell isn’t fair to me.”

He exhaled sharply, running a hand over his shaved head.

“You think I call everyone tesoro? You think I lose sleep over everyone the way I have over you these past months? Fuck, Matty. I know I fucked up, and I’m sorry about that, but you don’t get to rewrite what we had just because you’re hurting.”

His words landed hard.

I wanted to believe him. God, I really did. But the hurt was still there, raw and achy, and I didn’t know how to shove it back down.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

There was nothing left to say. The lies, the kiss, the hurt—everything I’d been carrying around with me for months was finally out in the open. Part of me felt lighter, but the rest of me was just . . . exhausted.

Bone-deep, soul-tired exhausted.

“I’m sorry, too,” I told him. “I just— Damn, I don’t know if I’ve ever been this tired.”