Page 71 of Between Now & Heartbreak

She steps back and tilts her head up to censure me with her eyes, “Youwouldn’t be pissed ifIwent out on a date?”

For a second, I’m afraid my head might explode.

“Beth, do youhearyourself? You’ve held me at arm’s length. Asked me to live with just being your friend. You have a fucking ex fiancé who is always in between us. You. Don’t. Get. To. Be. Pissed. At. Me.” I know I’m shouting, but I can’t help it.

She jumps up from the bench and crosses her arms over her chest like she’s cold.

“Iknow! And don’t yell at me.” Her voice is angry, but her eyes are fretful.

What is so hard about this?

We’re so damn good together.

She lets out a soft sigh, and trains her gaze on the floor. “Oh, Carter. What do I do?”

Seeing her conflicted so nakedly makes everything inside me of ache but I’m not going to make this easy for her. She has to make a choice. I’m not doing this anymore.

“That’s up to you, Queen Beth. You know what I want.”

She looks down, away from the demand my eyes are making.

I tip her chin up and force her to meet my eyes.

She’s smiling. But her eyes are sad.

“Don’t smile at me when you don’t mean it.” I say and brush a light kiss across her forehead before I let her go.

“So, what do you say?”

Tears cling to her lashes before she brushes them away with the back of her hand and then closes her eyes for the longest three seconds of my life.

When she opens her eyes and her tears are gone and blue pinwheels of regret swirl in front of me. My stomach falls, disbelief howls in my head, but I can see the truth plain as day.

This girl is about to break my fucking heart.

It feels like I’ve got two hearts in my chest, one is breaking and one is beating frantically against my chest, begging not to be left behind.

Her eyes dart suddenly over my shoulder and grow wide, her face drains of color and she lets out a blood curdling scream.

22

MERCY

BETH

A huge spideris crawling on top of the piano and I nearly bust my ass scrambling away from it. I’ve got a real phobia. Seeing it made me forget everything else for a second.

“What in the world is going on?” Carter looks behind me.

I point, panicked. “There’s a spider. Kill it,” I scream and point.

He scoffs, “I thought there was fucking chainsaw murderer standing behind me or something.”

“Close enough. Please,” I beg, not taking my eyes off the creature.

He walks over calmly and just looks at it. Then he picks up a piece of note paper from the stack and puts it in the spider’s path. I watch in horror as crawls onto it and he carries it over to the window, slides it open and throws it outside.

I walk over to him and eye him askance. “Thatmust be a city thing. Around here we just squish ‘em with our heel.”

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