Page 106 of Bring You Back

“Is Shelly Belly not available?” I ask on a half tease, and she laughs.

“Why do you call her that?”

I shrug, and her laugh falls to a soft smile.

“Shelby isn’t you.” She holds my stare, that softness now in her eyes bringing out a softness in mine. “And she doesn’t know Julian like you do.”

“You know him better than I do now,” I point out with a sigh, even though her extra knowledge is of the physical sense, I’ll say almost anything to get out of this.

“You’re not getting out of this,” she says, a tease in her tone to disguise the hurt that I would even think about trying.

Against my better judgment, I push off the drawer and go to sit beside her. “So what’s going on?” I assume her previous position, reclining against my palms.

She looks at me over her shoulder. “Has Julian. . .” There’s a brief pause as his name floats in the air between our stares. “Said anything to you about me? About us?”

Not in so many words.

Not things you need to hear from me.

“You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“So he has,” she concludes with suspicion, but I cut in before she can ask a slew of questions that I can’t answer.

“Specific, Reyna.”

She scoots back so we’re more hip-to-hip. Like by moving just an inch closer, I’ll hear her better. “What does it mean when a guy says he wants to slow down?”

I cock a brow. “That he wants to do things at the rate of a different speed?”

She tries to keep her face even, but amusement pushes through the effort. “Be serious.”

“I am being serious.”

She throws her hands up. “Okay, well, then be less serious.”

I make a face and she laughs.

“So. . .” I say before filling in thedot, dot, dot. “He wants to have less sex?”

“We haven’t been havinganysex since he said that,” she blurts, then looks away at the words, regret shaping her features at having admitted that to me. Having already put it out there, she divulges more. “He hasn’t even kissed me. I mean, you saw in the kitchen. . .” We exchange a look, the picture of Julian’s infamous mouth dodge in both our minds before her look changes to one of offense. “And you make it sound like that’s all we’re about.”

My mistake.

She goes on, “I mean, he’s been kind of an asshole for a while, but even then, he’s never put the brakes on us.”

“He didn’t,” I say, reminding her of the words she spoke seconds ago. “He said he wanted to slow down.”

“Yeah, hesaidthat, but the brakes have been hit.”

“And what does that tell you?” I probe, hoping that she finally takes his actions more seriously than his words.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she says instead. “There’s nothing wrong with believing the best in people.”

Once again, she’s speaking through her fears, disguised as hopes. I sigh. “There is when you’re seeing the worst.”

“This isn’t theworst,” she says with a look that crumples as she holds my stare. “I love him, Camille. I don’t want the brakes.”

I want to tell her she shouldn’t have gotten in thecar. She’s riding shotgun with the wrong guy, and she needs to open her eyes. But it’s notmyjob to make her see.

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