She looked drained. Her shoulders drooped when she flopped to sit on the edge of the futon. She moved her lips a few times, before finally saying, “I don’t know.”
“Then we’re done here.”
“You misunderstand.” Exhaustion lined her words. “I can see how much this devours you—what happened overseas. I don’t hold that against you. It’s going to take time for me to process; I’ll be honest. I don’t think any less of you, though. I still adore you.”
“Then what’s the problem?” He shouldn’t ask. He didn’t want to know.
“You don’t trust me. Which is your right, but if we don’t have that, we don’t have anything. It’s my fault, too. This whole friends-with-benefits thing was a bad idea.”
Damn straight. So why did hearing it gnaw deeper into his senses? Plenty of other women made cutoffs look erotic and tasted like cherry lip-gloss. “I still don’t know why you’re here,” he said.
She nodded at the empty space next to her. He sat, and she twisted to face him, legs crossed. A heavy pause spread through the room, before she finally spoke. “High school. Senior year.”
The four words echoed in his thoughts, and he froze. He forced himself to relax. At least if their past was going to torment them, they’d go full-throttle. There were so many old scars there. “You want to rehash what was some really miserable shit for both of us?”
“Homecoming.”
“Don’t do this.” He dropped his gaze. Of course she wanted to talk about that. She was going to push until she reopened more wounds.
“I’d been hinting all summer that I wanted to you ask me.”
The revelation dug deep. Why did she say that now? Why not ten years ago? It didn’t matter. He’d already dealt with that and moved on. So much had happened since, that moment shouldn’t even be a blip on his radar any longer. “To homecoming?”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you ask me? An even better question is, why did you sayyesto someone else?”
Her frown deepened. “I was an insecure teenage girl, with dreams of you being Prince Charming. I saidyesto someone else, because I was hoping it would catch your attention and you would see what you were missing and ask me yourself.”
“You did it to make me jealous?” he asked in disbelief. Such a childish game. So why did it tug at something warm inside?
“Insecure teenage girl, remember?”
A laugh slipped out at the confession. Was he actually starting to relax? This easy banter with her was what soothed him and kept him from slipping into his own regrets. Even when they hit a painful subject, if they could move past it, it comforted him. He didn’t want that. Hadn’t earned the right to move on.
As long as they were confessing, he might as well spill it all. “I’d been trying to work up the courage to ask you for weeks. When someone asked me that morning, I told hernoand realized I needed to suck it up and let you know how I felt. Except you already had a date. I pretended to be happy for you, because that’s what best friends do, and I didn’t want you to think I was a bad sport. I convinced myself I read your hints wrong and we really were just friends. So I went back to her and told her I’d love to go with her if she’d still have me.”
She stared back, silent.
“What are you thinking?”
Her smile looked forced. “Just wondering how things would have been different if we’d hooked up back then.”
“We’d be miserable.” That’s why he brought it up. For as many times as he had the same what-if thought, he already knew the answer.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
She wasn’t supposed to question him. He had his reasons. “You don’t feel that way about me. Imagine if we’d indulged a temporary crush and broken up. We wouldn’t be here now.” Not that he knew whereherewas.
Hurt echoed in her eyes. “I guess.”
He hated the distance between them and that it grew with every passing second. He hated even worse that he was the current source of her gloom. “We didn’t belong together then, and we don’t belong together now.” He shouldn’t have let things go this far. It had been stupid and shortsighted. Destroying what they had, because he was thinking with his dick.
“Do you really feel that way?” She clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes.
“Of course I do.” Part of him whispered it was a lie, but a louder voice screamed nothing had ever been truer. “That’s the way it is.”
“I see.” She stood, not looking at him. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, then.”