Page 64 of Sunshine

I can’t help but smile. I’mmorethan okay.

I don’t know how to explain how I feel right now, sitting shotgun in Wells’s truck with my shirt off. But after weeks of hell and so much heartbreak, I finally feel alive again.

“I’m okay,” I confirm, focusing back on the vent and my wet shirt.

Flamescrack in the stone fireplace, warming the chill from my bones as Wells comes in from the kitchen with two mugs in hand. “I hope you like hot chocolate,” he says as he sets one mug down on the table in front of me.

I’m sitting in the exact spot of the cozy green couch I was on that first night here, after finding out about Jason’s affair with Emma. Only weeks have passed since then, yet it feels like a lifetime ago. I remember looking at Wells that night like he was a stranger, like everything in the last six years of my life had been a lie. But as I watch shadows from the light of the fire dance across his face, I realize that somewhere along the way he’s become my lifeline. I’m anchored to his attention and care in ways that I know I shouldn’t be . . . But I can’t get enough.

“I love it.” I smile, reaching for the mug. He sits down beside me as I take a long sip, relishing the heat it brings me.Factually, I know my body is cold. My still-damp shirt hangs heavily from my shoulders after I refused to take a dry one from him, and my skin is prickled with goosebumps that flare every time I shift in my seat.

Still, I don’treallyfeel it. My heart and mind are busy replaying everything that’s happened in the last hour, careful to slow down in all the right places. I chance a look at him and find his gaze lost somewhere in the hearth.

“Thank you,” I say quietly. “For taking me with you today. For . . . all of it.” For pulling me out of a weeks-long spiral with a kiss so perfect I felt like I couldbreatheagain.

His eyes blaze as they catch mine. But then he seems to turn in on himself, picking up the mug and tracing the lip. “I’m on the losing end of my restraint, Layla—I always have been when it comes to you. I’ve tried to fight it for so longand never seem to get it right. But all of this is a terrible idea. I never should have let it happen.”

I feel my stomach drop. He . . . heregretsit?

“We can’t do that again.”

I jump up to my feet, the need to put space between us becoming all-consuming. I march across the living room toward the fireplace and whip back around to face him. “You tell me how much you want me . . . that you’ve wanted meallthis time. And now you’re going to push me away?”

He stares at me with sad eyes and says nothing.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Wells?” I shout.

“What’swrongwith me?” he retorts. “I fell for my best friend’s girl. That’s what’s wrong with me.” His jaw jumps as he sets his mug down. “Jason may have made mistakes, but he doesn’t deserve this.”

My eyes burn with tears. “He was fucking another girl for weeks, Wells. Maybe months! And she wasn’t even the first. He didn’t care about me, not like I needed him to. He only ever cared about himself.”

“That’s not true.”

An incredulous laugh bursts out of my mouth. “Are you kidding me? He didn’t care! He gave me pretty lies about a perfect future and promised to take care of me and love me forever. But he wouldn’t have hurt me like that if he did.”

“Layla, goddammit—Iknowyou don’t want this,” he roars, pushing up to his feet. Red-hot anger mars his beautiful face, and I revel in it. “I may have too many feelings for a girl who’s never been mine, but you’ve never looked at me like you looked at him. You’re just sad and angry about what he was doing, and my feelings for you are a perfect opportunity for you to get your revenge.”

I scoff. “Revenge? He’s dead, Wells!” I can’t help the tears that stream down my face, and I’m soangrythat I’m crying again. “He’s not here for me to bask in the glory of some pathetic revenge plan.”

“I just have a hard time believing this would actually mean anything to you,” he says, and it’s like a knife to the heart.

“I guess you don’t know me, then.”

His face twists in frustration. “You think I don’t know you?”

I don’t know how long I stare at him, but it’s long enough to lose all sense of time and space. “Wells,” I breathe out, my hands shaking with the restraint not to reach out and touch him.

“I fucking know you, Layla. I know you by heart.”

My thoughts slow down, growing sticky against the heat of his gaze.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” he says, quietly now as he moves closer to me. “Tell me this isn’t just about revenge for you.”

“Maybe in the beginning . . . I didn’t understand you. You were moody and quiet and you sure made it obvious that you didn’t want me around. I thought you hated me, and I was worried about it—worried that Jason might dump the girl who didn’t get along with his best friend.

“But then . . . you just kept showing up, Wells. You were there for me along the edges of so many moments that it made it hard to ignore. You saw me even when Jason didn’t—and I never knew how to explain it, other than that I hoped it meant we were becoming real friends. Iwantedto be friends with you.

“And then you almost kissed me after Jason broke up with me, and I woke up the next morning realizing I wished youhad.”

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