“You need to eat, Lennon,” I say, following her and not allowing her to escape this discussion.
She turns and looks at me, then within a few steps, she points her finger into my chest. “You need to stop telling me what to do.” Her breasts rise and fall as I look into her eyes. “And I’m still waiting for a goddamn explanation as to why you treated me like shit for two years.”
I gently grab her wrist and move her finger that’s nearly ready to break into me before placing her palm against my racing heart. “You feel that?” I softly ask.
Lennon sucks in a deep breath, looking between our hands and my eyes. Swallowing, she nods.
“The moment I met you, I knew you were so damn special. In here.” I tap my finger against my chest. “I knew.” I shrug, keeping her close. “I wanted you that night and missed my chance to ask you out. But—” Just as I’m about to say that Brandon was the better guy for her, knowing he could give her everything she wanted, she pulls her hand back and walks around me, seething.
“You were awful to me!” she shouts, and I turn around to follow her. “You treated me like an inconvenience and purposely got under my skin every chance possible. You were the worst, Hunter, the biggest dickhead I’d ever met in my life, and I hated you for it!” She’s pissed, but I don’t blame her. I know I was all those things.
“Lennon, I know. I regret all of it, trust me. I’ve lived with the guilt of how I treated you for months,” I tell her, stepping closer, but she maintains her distance.
She snorts, exaggerating her disbelief. “And now you expect me to believe you always had a thing for me? After you brought home random chicks and the way you acted toward me? What do you want me to say? Yeah, we kissed. We had to share a bed. We were close and had to pretend to be married. It was all an act, and that’s all it ever can be.”
Her words are a slap in the face considering there was no acting on my part, and I know she’s only lying to herself and me if she claims she was only acting too.
“I can’t help the way my body reacts to you when we kiss, Hunter. My body may say yes, but my head says no.”
Another slap.
“And what about your heart? What does your heart say, Lennon?” I challenge.
She looks at me, her bottom lip quivering. Maybe I’ve actually pushed her too far, but she’s not going down without a fight.
Lennon opens her mouth and closes it once again, then refuses to look at me. “All of this is so fucking wrong, I can’t even see straight. Bottom line is, telling me that you always had feelings for me is too much. I can barely understand it because you made me so damn miserable!” She’s screaming, her eyes wide with anger. I can only focus on the fact she’s avoiding what her heart is saying because she feels guilty about it. Her actions always speak louder than words.
I know this is confusing to hear because of the way I treated her in the past, how I wanted to rescue her after Brandon passed away, and especially now that I’m telling her how I truly feel.
I put my hands up, hoping she calms down so I can get out what I need to say. “Lennon, I know!” I’m just as heated as she is. “But can you think about my situation for two fucking seconds? All these years, all I ever wanted was to forget about you. I didn’t want to have feelings for you once I knew you were with Brandon. I wanted you out of my goddamn head because it was poison to feel that way about my best friend’s girlfriend. But nothing I did helped. Not fucking random women. Not treating you like trash. Nothing. Me being an asshole, me pushing you away, that was me pretending, Lennon. I constantly lied to myself, hoping I’d get over whatever it was I felt, but nothing fucking worked,” I shout. “But these past few days with you”—I wave a finger between us—“was one hundred percent real for me. I know it’s fucked up, trust me, and I hate that I could never get over you. But think about this for a moment. Brandon was my best friend, and I loved him like a brother. No matter how I felt, I never wanted to do or say anything to jeopardize what you two had because I knew it was special. I could see how much you meant to him, so I sat on the sidelines, but it didn’t mean my feelings weren’t there. It just meant I had to choke on them every time I saw you with him.”