Page 41 of Bring You Back

“We’re done.”

I note the lack of emotion in his voice. “You don’t sound too broken up about it.”

He shrugs. “I’m not, really. It was a great year, but. . .”

“She doesn’t have your heart,” I finish for him.

He swirls the water in his cup, that familiar faraway look passing over his face, tinged with that wistful longing as he simply shakes his head.

He clears his throat and says, with the tiniest hint of teasing, “I realized today … I don’t wanna feed her.”

I stare at his profile a moment, then burst out laughing. His mouth stays slack as he looks at me, the only hint of amusement evident in the slight crinkle of his eyes. “You should’ve fed Reyna when you had the chance,” I tease.

He laughs now, then sighs. “Story of my life.”

“You know,youwrite the story of your life.”

He just eyes my pointed stare over the rim of his cup as he takes another drink, closed-off to any more hints or pressures to do what he knows he should.

But I don’t stop there. “Guy swoops in on unhappy girl and sweeps her off her feet.” I say the sentence like it’s a tagline, and he makes a face at me. How is something so cheesy, on the verge of romantic, being said from my mouth? I cock a challenging brow.

“She’s happy,” he argues, but there’s doubt in the words, making this just an excuse. “I don’t want to take that away.”

I chuckle at the subtle implication. “ButIdo, apparently.”

“Yousaid it,” Tommy mutters around the rim of his cup, and I chuckle again.

“I just want what I know is mine,” I say, low, then steer us back to the real subject here with a shake of my head, my newlife’s shortmentality overruling my old desire to let people fight their own battles. “We all know how good you would be for her. How good youarefor her. Andyouknow that staying silent is not helping her in the long run. She’s going to blame you, too.”

When all of this implodes, Reyna is going to blame everyone who knew the truth and kept it from her. But it’s Tommy who has more to lose.

“Exactly,” he argues again. “So why not let her be happy while she can be?”

I open my mouth to refute, but he does it himself.

“Yeah, I know. It’s messed up.” He looks back over his shoulder. “But so is Julian.”

I look back, too, seeing Julian and Banks in the same spot I left them, talking with smiles back on their faces. Bromance reinstated.

I narrow my eyes on this picture, then shift them back to Tommy. “Making excuses for him now?”

“It’s not an excuse,” Tommy says. “It’s the way it is.”

“Yeah, see, it’s that attitude that’s getting you nowhere.”

He makes a face. “It used to be your attitude, too.”

I hold his stare. “Things change.”

He holds mine a moment longer, then scoffs a laugh. “Thenyoucan swoop in.”

“I’ve swooped,” I say, and he gives me a skeptical side-eye. “I’m here, aren’t I? It’syourmove.”

“I don’t swoop,” he declares, the hint of teasing back in his voice. “It’s more like a slide.”

“Oh, well,” I chuckle, “slide on in, then.”

Tommy cringes at the wording, then we laugh at the same time.

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