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And inexperienced. He knew just how much. I flushed, my eyes prickling. Suddenly, I felt small and… kind of pathetic.

“Lark.” His voice was hoarse.

I forced myself to look up at him, hoping the small smile on my lips was believable. But it kept wavering.

“I… I love spending time with you, whatever we’re doing,” he continued, gazing down at me like he wanted to say more.

“Me too.” I hoped I didn’t sound too desperate. I’d had so much fun with him—not just with the sex stuff, but everything else. Talking and playing games and eating pizza and just spending time with him—just the two of us.

“I hope we don’t stop once this—once you decide you’re… done with your lessons.”

I shook my head immediately as my belly clenched with dread at the thought of our lessons ending. Suddenly, I was terrified that he was going to put a stop to them right now because of my fuck-up.

“No way, no. I—We’re friends, right?” I gazed up at him pleadingly, and my mouth trembled as I blurted, “I’m sorry. For what I told Kit. I just… I didn’t expect them to tell me that and I didn’t know what else to say.”

I hated the thought of Seb being mad at me, and he still seemed a little off. Almost sad.

He shook his head, lips tilting into a tiny smile that I was almost positive wasn’t real. “You have no reason to be sorry. And you don’t need to go and speak to Kit again if you don’t want to. You can tell whoever you want that we’re dating. But… we’re not. Are we?”

I stared up at him, my limbs locked and trembling lightly. I parted my lips, but couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t bring myself to speak, and I didn’t know why, but it felt like if I agreed, I’d be saying something I couldn’t take back and it would feel really, really terrible.

I was panicking for some reason. That desperate urge to do something rose up again, making me jittery. I wanted to lunge at him and crush my mouth to his as if it would fix this weird, awkward conversation we were having, as if it would make it go away so I didn’t have to answer.

But that felt like the wrong thing right now too. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t make sense of the emotions churning inside me.

“I better go finish moving those boxes,” I heard myself say. I tried to smile at him, but wasn’t sure I achieved it. “I’m sorry again for… making this weird. Um, I’ll see you later.”

“Please stop apologising,” Seb said hoarsely as I turned, sounding almost as panicked as I felt. “Larkin. You didn’t make it weird.”

It wasn’t like me to walk away from something. I usually faced everything head on, except the one thing that had gotten me into this situation. But then, I supposed I had eventually faced that in my own way. A way that suddenly felt really… confusing.

I walked quickly down the hallway, feeling him watching me. Just as I heard him say, “Larkin,” again, Holt appeared around the corner from Taylor’s office and we almost bumped into each other.

“Shit, sorry.” Flustered, I stepped back and tried to move out of the way, but Holt’s fingers curled around my arm as he frowned at me.

“What’s wrong?”

Fuck. Shit. Why did my stupid boss have to be a stupid, perceptive emotion-sensing empyn?

“Nothing,” I said quickly, trying to give him my usual grin. “I’m great as always, boss.”

“No, you’re not.” His frown deepened. He glanced behind me, which reflexively made me look back. I cringed as I saw Seb sigh and turn to go back into the office, his wide shoulders slumped.

“Did Seb say something to upset you?” Holt asked in a hushed voice, looking and sounding like he couldn’t believe that was possible.

“I’m not upset,” I said automatically. “And no. Seb didn’t say anything.”

“You are upset, Lark.” Holt looked shockingly concerned about me. I mean, I knew he had to like me at least a little to keep me on as his assistant when I admittedly could sometimes be… not the best, but I hadn’t known he actually, like, cared about me.

To my utter humiliation, I felt my vision go blurry as my chin wobbled.

“I’m fine,” I got out, even though now I was getting upset and I had no fucking idea why.

“Come with me.” Holt tightened his grip on my arm and started pulling me forward.

Terror filled me for a moment as I wondered if he was dragging me back to the office to do something embarrassing like confront Seb and force us to express our feelings while he mediated, but then I realised he was pulling me in the other direction.

“I haven’t f-finished m-moving the b-boxes,” I stammered tearfully, scrubbing roughly at my eyes with my shirt sleeve.