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I sighed, relieved. “Finally, we’re on the same page. If you want to remain friends, an apology would be accep—”
“I promised myself I’d never give you the pleasure of making me feel like shit again.” His nostrils flared, his words cutting me like a dagger. “Yet, here I am, doing this song and dance with you again.”
My mouth fell open. “What?”
“I let you in, and you let me down,” he gritted out. “I told you I liked you, and you’re giving me mixed signals. I told you I wanted to take you out, eat you out, and you’re friend-zoning me even though your nipples are harder than stones whenever we’re in the same zip code. I told you how I feel about Kieran, and you went and kissed the crap out of him the first time we are all together.”
“First of all, he kissed me, not vice versa. Second, I told you how I feel about her,” I hissed, my voice pained. I was glad Allison wasn’t around because I wouldn’t be able to speak freely otherwise. Pathetically, I was still scared of her.
“And I listened carefully. Stayed the hell away. If you let me explain—”
“No need to. I have eyes. You guys seemed chummy enough. A picture is worth a thousand words.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, messing it further. “Fuck, I keep making the same mistake, expecting different outcomes.”
He was being so hypocritical. We’d both confided in each other before we’d started hanging out, and we’d both kept a cordial relationship with the people who had hurt the other person. Besides, there was no symmetry between Kieran being a dickhead and Allison trying to kill me. Row was acting like some kind of saint, not a man who’d let his ex—my enemy—dry hump his leg a second ago. “Don’t try to gaslight me. I have eyes, you know. You two came here together—”
“I came here alone.” He sliced through my words. “I was planning to join you and Dylan. I was gonna ask if you wanna grab dinner afterward. At Descartes.”
“As a friend, a worker, or…?”
“As a date.” His cheeks flushed, and he looked ready to murder himself for the confession. He had been going to ask me out? Misery slammed through me. I wished things hadn’t gone so sideways tonight. The idea of doing something so normal and mundane, such as going on a date with a man without being deathly scared, appealed to me.
“Well, you hung out with her.” I prickled, remembering he hadn’t even approached us to say hello.
“I had my reasons.”
“Which were?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“If you say so.” I wanted to fight for his words, to explain that Kieran had only kissed me to piss him and Allison off, but the words perished on my tongue. I was too chickenshit to fix the situation. Showing him I cared made me feel raw, panicked. Like I was peeling off my skin right in front of him, giving him a sneak peek at everything that was inside me.
“You had no right to hit Kieran.” The words stumbled out of my throat messily, spilling between us.
“I had every right to hit Kieran.” Row stepped back, turning away from me, about to leave.
“Why?”
“Because I knew you didn’t like it.” He spun on his heel, walking backward but looking at me. “And I am utterly fucking incapable of letting you feel the slightest discomfort without doing something stupid and over the top. And there’s something else.” He was getting farther and farther away from me, and I was feeling the loss of him everywhere. I wanted him back. His warmth. His smirks. His grumpy attitude.
“What’s that?” I whispered.
“You weren’t his to kiss.”
CAL
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