Page 15 of Sadistic

"Fucking creep." Dalla takes the exit harder than necessary. "I hate him."

"You don't know him."

"I know enough."

Njal's apartment complex comes into view too quickly.

He's waiting outside, hands shoved in his jeans pockets, looking like every college memory I'm about to lose.

Dark hair messy from running his hands through it, that old leather jacket I've worn a hundred times, eyes that have seen me in every possible state—drunk, crying, laughing, coming undone.

"Thirty minutes," Dalla says. "Then I'm coming up."

"Dal—"

"Thirty minutes, Rev."

I get out on unsteady legs.

Njal doesn't move until I'm close enough to see the hurt in his eyes, the dark circles that say he didn't sleep either.

"Is it true?" No greeting, no pretense. "You're actually marrying Volkolv?"

I hold up my left hand, the sapphire catching the morning sun. "Monday we announce it. Four weeks until the wedding."

"Four weeks?" He runs his hands through his hair—dark like his father's, but with his mother's gentle curl. "Fuck, Rev. We said we'd figure this out. After graduation?—"

"We were kidding ourselves." The words hurt but they're true. "This was always going to happen."

"I would have fought for you."

"And gotten yourself killed. Your father works for mine, Njal. There was never a version of this where we won."

He turns away, jaw clenched. "Two years. Two years of?—"

"Of what? Sneaking around? Never calling it what it was? We never even said—" I stop because finishing that sentence will break us both.

"I know what we never said." He faces me again, and Gods, his eyes. "Doesn't mean I didn't feel it."

"Don't."

"Why not? Because it's inconvenient now? Because Volkolv's already put his brand on you?" He gestures at the ring. "Four weeks, Rev. That's all? That's what we're worth?"

"Stop it."

"No. You know what? Fuck being noble about this." He steps closer. "I love you. Have since that first night when you punched Caleb Zambuto and then threw up in my car."

"That's not—you're just?—"

"What? Confused? Jealous? Pick whatever makes this easier for you." His hands cup my face, calloused from years of working on bikes with his dad. "But I know what I feel. What I've felt for two years while we played pretend."

"It wasn't pretend."

"Then what was it?"

I can't answer because admitting what we were means admitting what we're losing.

"Come up," he says quietly. "Please. Just... come up."

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