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“Yeah, you should’ve. Now come here.” Even though I was already next to him, he pulled me even closer. “You’re too far away.”
I knew exactly what he meant. A distance between us now that wasn’t physical, but it was there nonetheless and I didn’t know if it was something that could be fixed. A switch had been flipped and like April said, we’d never be the same.
After a long pause he spoke, “If you don’t want me to see April again, I won’t.”
The thrill that shot through me was so wrong. So very wrong. A part of me was tempted to say that I never wanted him to breathe the same air as she did. But that was ridiculous, immature, and petty. All things I didn’t want to be.
“Why would you say that?” I ventured.
“Seeing April is the only thing I can think of that would change us, and we are changed. I don’t like it.” He sighed. “That was the one thing you asked of me—that I not shag your friends.”
“Kieran—” my sigh matched his “—I want you to be happy. If April makes you happy, then be with her.” Those words might as well have been razorblades on my tongue. I did want him to be happy. I just didn’t want it to be her that made him happy.
Who was I kidding? I wanted it to be me, and now he’d handed me all this power. I still wasn’t happy because he didn’t want me the way he wanted April. He needed me, he loved me, but he didn’t want me.
Meatloaf was wrong. Two out of three was all kinds of bad.
“She’s not what I want.”
Relief splashed like cold water on a sunburn. “What do you want?”
“It’s so far away, I don’t even dare name it.”
Something nagging at the back of my brain told me not to push this one, but I wanted to encourage him. “There’s nothing stopping you.”
“Only my good sense.”
“I’ve never let that stop me. I mean, how insane is Chubbalicious?”
He turned to look at me. “It’s not insane at all. It’s fucking brilliant. There are a lot of curvier women who want to dress up, who want to feel good doing it. You’re going to give that to them. Supply and demand.”
“But is it going to be enough to support myself? I dropped out of college. I’m going both feet first. What if I fail?”
“Then you’ll go back to university. You’ll get loans. But you won’t fail. The shoot Saturday is marketing genius.”
“Thanks for believing in me.” How had this turned into a conversation about me? “You know that I’m here for you, too, right?” I put my hand on his.
“I know and I hope I never lose that.”
“Why would you think you could?” My heart thudded and trepidation snaked around my ribs squeezing ever tighter.
“Because I fuck up everything I touch. I get it dirty and then I break it.”
“That’s bullshit. Don’t say that.” There was so much pain in his words made all the more poignant because he really believed it to be true. The sky was blue. The grass was green. Kieran broke things. It was an absolute in his mind.
I tilted my head to look up at him and turned his face toward me. I wanted him to see the truth in my eyes when I spoke.
“You don’t dirty anything. You don’t break things. Other people break themselves on you and that’s their cross to bear. Not yours. Never apologize for surviving. Or for being who you are.”
The intimacy of our position hit me hard. Intimacy between us was commonplace, but not like this. I’d cupped his jaw when I turned him to face me and his hand was in my hair. If this were any other couple, a crashing of mouths was what would happen next.
But it wasn’t any other couple.
It was me. It was Kieran.
My lips parted and I was vaguely aware that I’d wet them in expectation. I’d have blushed at the trajectory of my thoughts, if I’d remembered to breathe. It was like we were underwater, everything moving in slow-motion.
For a nanosecond, I thought he was going to kiss me.
He dipped his head slowly, his green eyes gone dark like the cold Irish sea, his lips parted.
And oh Jesus, I was dying. Expectation, desire, fear—everything it was possible to feel rolled over me in wave after wave. My belly tightened and I was afraid if he did kiss me, I might shatter right there in his arms.
But if he didn’t…that would break me too.
He buried his face in my neck, his hand still tangled in my hair, and his breath hot and taunting on my skin.
Shame burned. Of course he wasn’t going to kiss me. I knew he didn’t want me that way. It was April and girls like her. After all, Kieran could have anyone he wanted. Why would he ever choose me?
