Page 126 of Over the Limit

“I’ve learned some things from it. I’ve said fuck off to a lot of other things, but the one truth is I wasn’t the man you deserved.”

Wow. That was unexpected. Those six words were nowhere on my radar.

“Oliver—”

“No. Let me get it out. Let me get it out and then I can go back to being the asshole Rossi, which is a way more comfortable place for me.”

“Okay. I’ll be quiet.”

“I don’t deserve you. I never did. Not you. Not your patience. Not your friendship. Not your love. I took you for granted—for a long time—and I owe you a huge apology for that.”

“Jesus, Oliver. You really know how to take a girl by surprise.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t, just like I won’t apologize that Lachlan loves me better than you did.”

He chokes on his next breath. “Love, Blair? Really? Can’t you let my body get cold before you move on?”

“You didn’t mine.”

“Yeah, but the women I slept with were placeholders until you came back to me.”

Ouch. “That’s even worse. Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Was your comment supposed to make me?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

Touché.

“No.”

“The truth often hurts as I’ve come to understand these past few weeks.” He swallows forcibly. “I don’t like this man anymore, Blair. The one you fell in love with. It’s so much easier to be the man I am now. The one who people steer clear of. The one people talk about. The one who doesn’t get hurt.”

It’s a suit of armor.

One that I just proved to him he needed.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” I explain. “The Lachlan thing. It just did and then we were like oh, shit . . . and it just happened.”

He nods but doesn’t look at me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be who you needed me to be.”

“Please don’t apologize for who you are.”

“It’ll take me some time, but I’ll get used to the idea of you being someone else’s. Not for a long time, maybe, but eventually.”

I hesitate at first but then rest my head on his shoulder—much like I used to in this exact spot for so many years. I feel like I’m betraying all the emotions I’ve been holding in over the past few weeks. The hurt. The anger. The disbelief. The betrayal. The fear. But at the same time, this is Oliver. The boy I used to know, the one that some part of me will always love, and somehow, we have to take steps to get back to where we can be good. Baby steps, but steps, nonetheless.

It will never be the same between us again, but it can be more settled.

Is that what I feel? Like this might be settled and I can have my friend back eventually?

“You know when we were teenagers, we’d sit here for hours. We’d—”

“Make out.”

“Yes. Of course that’s what you’d remember”—I nudge him—“but you’d talk endlessly about driving and what it would be like when you made it to Formula 1 and I’d sit here and daydream about being able to fly.”

“Fly?” He snorts and then laughs. “That’s cute. Really.” He says the words, but I can hear his condescension in his tone. Can feel him thinking how ridiculous I was. “Cute but childish.”