Page 72 of Love, Hate, Love

“Can you come down? The wood up there hasn’t been checked in ages. This whole building is rotting and about to collapse.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Surprised you haven’t torn it down.”

“Haven’t gotten around to it.”

That seemed almost unfathomable when I looked around and everything else had been redone around it. Maybe it was like that old swing on the porch he’d saved. Some things seemed to hold a soul of their own and it wasn’t so easy to toss them away.

“Come on, come down.” He was holding his hands up to me the way he used to. How many times had I climbed up here just so he could catch me? I was glad it was dark and he couldn’t see me well up, or the heat infusing my cheeks at the memory of how much I used to want him. Actually, I couldn’t really think of it as “used to” after the way I’d reacted when he kissed me yesterday.

“I’m fine. I swear.” I leaned, and a piece of wood groaned.

“I’m not leaving you up there.”

I shifted and another round of creaking wasn’t helping my argument. He might have a point about this place.

“I’ll climb down.” I got up and the wood creaked again, like an old man gasping his last breath. There’d been some rotting boards I’d stepped around, but it was getting hard to see where they were now that the sun had set.

I tested a step and realized I’d found at least one of the rotted spots.

“Jump. I’ll catch you. There’s too much rotten wood up there.”

“You can’t catch me,” I said. This hadn’t been one of my better ideas for sure.

“Why? I’ve done it a million times before.”

This was like one of those exercises where you fell backward and hoped whoever was behind you would catch you, except worse. Ten years ago, I would’ve fallen blindly.

“Leah? You can’t walk around up there,” he said.

Was I really afraid of his dropping me, or was I scared of his catching me?

“You’re too old to be doing this.” It was a bit ridiculous, since he was probably stronger than he’d been at nineteen, or at least his arms were thicker, like he’d been toting logs around on his back for these past ten years.

“I think I can manage,” he said, with some earned arrogance.

Dammit.But I did want to get down sometime tonight. “Fine. But if you break your back, don’t blame me.”

“Leah, shut up and jump already. I swear I just heard more creaking.”

I shimmied to the edge. “I’m jumping,” I said.

“Any day now.”

I pushed off the side and he caught me, just like he used to. But he didn’t put me down right away like he used to.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice already growing raspier at the contact.

“Is it the wedding?” he asked.

“It’s not the wedding.” My voice had come out so harsh that I might as well have written a confession. “Or it’s notjustthe wedding.”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I’d known you didn’t want it.”

The nicer he was, the worse this situation grew. The physical attraction had never gone away, but I’d been able to cling to his being an asshole. If he was going to take that away, what shield was I left with now?

I chewed on my lower lip as his gaze narrowed in on my mouth in a way that made it feel like my ribcage had been shrink-wrapped around my lungs. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” he asked.

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