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“We’ve both had lives, Lila,” he says. “It wasn’t your responsibility.”
“Still. I feel like I could have reached out. When everything happened. We were close once.”
He looks contemplative, his full lips pressing into a tight line. “I was a mess, anyway. I’m not sure that I would have been very receptive to anyone trying to help.”
“We could still talk about it, you know. About Mei and the pictures. You know that I’m always here to listen.”
I watch as his jaw clenches, a wrinkle forming at his brow before he suddenly gives my back another push. “There’s nothing to talk about, really. It’s old news. People just haven’t figured that out yet.”
I want to push it, for my own curiosity as well as my worry for his feelings, but I can tell when I’m being shut out. I can’t even say why I’m so eager to talk about it in the first place. Is it just because I want to know more about him? To understand him better? And why is that? It’s not like there’s actually anything between us.
“When I saw the pictures of you and that woman, I swear I never thought that you would ever—”
He stops pushing altogether, making a frustrated sound and stepping away from the swings. “Lila. We seriously don’t have to talk about this. It’s not important anymore.”
“Okay.” I hang my head, feeling my face heat. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t—fuck,” he mutters. “Hey.” He kneels down at my feet, peering up at me. I suck in a breath when his hand reaches to press his fingers to my chin, tilting it up to force me to look at him. “Don’t be sorry, okay? I just hate the idea of you thinking about this shit. I can take everyone else thinking I’m garbage, but not you.”
But not me?
My brain is already reading way too much into that.
“I don’t think that,” I assure him quietly. “I’ve never thought that.”
His mouth quirks, and his eyes are warm, and there’s a barely-there swipe of his thumb against my jawline before his expression changes, and he stands abruptly. “Good,” he grunts. “You were always as much of my friend as Jack was. I hope you know that.”
His friend.
Fuck, that word sours my stomach now just as much as it did back then.
“Right,” I answer softly. “Of course.”
His gaze lingers on my face for a second more, his expression unreadable but his eyes still soft. “We should probably get back. Everyone is going to be looking for us.”
“Sure,” I say, sliding out of the swing and landing on my feet.
Like this, the disparity of our heights is glaringly obvious, and being this close makes me feel tiny, dainty even—thick thighs and all. It makes the lizard part of my brain wonder if he could simply slide his hands under my ass and pull me up against him without a second thought.
I try to cut through the awkward tension between us by shaking off my desperate thoughts and bumping my hip against his, forcing a grin on my mouth. “Come on, I’ll race you back.”
“What?” His nose scrunches. “I’m not going to—”
I take off at a dead run, laughing, and it hardly even takes a second for me to hear the heavy falls of his footsteps close behind me, an answering laugh in the wind.
Idly I wonder if I can go fast enough to outrun all the conflicting emotions Ian makes me feel…but somehow I doubt it.
Ten
IAN
The picture that circulates on the internet in the days after the orphanage isn’t one I thought it would be. It isn’t glimpses of Lila talking to me at the rink, or me helping clean up after, not even the moment where I whispered in her ear that still makes me heat up when I recall it—all things that would have been perfectly good rumor-feeding photos—no, the picture that trumped them all is the one I hadn’t expected anyone to nab.
It’s not the first time I’ve looked at it, not even the first ten, if I’m being honest—mostly because there’s something about seeing myself crouched in front of her while she looks down at me from her perch on one of those old swings that strikes me as odd. Or maybe it feels odd because of how not odd it feels. I can’t be sure. My fingers are gentle against her chin, and there’s a serious expression on my face that is completely at war with the soft one she wears, and the entire scene as a whole is…It’s fucking believable, is what it is. It sure as hell doesn’t look like just two friends.
And we hadn’t even been trying.
My only explanation is that I had felt such a strong need to comfort her, to let her know that I wasn’t at all upset with her—because I had meant what I said to her. I can handle strangers thinking that I’m a piece of shit, or even just that I used to be, but for some reason, the idea of Lila viewing me that way turns my stomach. When we were younger, her obvious affection had always felt so warm and right, so much so that I found myself seeking her out anytime I came around, just to experience it. Lila has always been a comfort to me, and even if she’s grown up now and different from the girl I knew—it’s obvious that nothing about that has changed. I still feel that urge to be close to her, to protect her, to make her laugh, and when she was a child, that felt totally natural, but with the woman she’s become…something about it feels different now.
