Page 17 of The Worst Kind of Promise
Fuck. I want to bite her tongue, leave behind teeth impressions, mark her asmine. Give her a princess treatment she’ll actually enjoy. If I wasn’t being held back by this fucked-up situation, I’d pull over right now and spend the rest of the day worshipping every inch of her body. But even kissing her—without tongue, might I add—is a bad idea.
Hayes is my friend. I respect him. I live with him. We play on the same team. If he finds out I evenlookedat Faye a certain way, he’d have me eating ice for every foreseeable game in the future. And with a little more blood to thecorrecthead now, I also don’t want to put Faye in such an uncomfortable position, no matter how badly I want her.
“Hey, no judgment here. I’m a great talking point.”
Something unreadable brews in her eyes, and it’s blatantly obvious to me that I haven’t been doing a good job of mitigating her worries. I can’t even earn a half-hearted laugh from her.
“I can’t believe I’m keeping a huge secret from my brother.” With a bow of her shoulders, she buries her face in her hands. “I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal, but all of that’s going to change when I’ll be seeing him every day.”
I want to reach out and comfort her, but I’m pretty sure that would do more harm than good right now. I feel for Faye. I can’t imagine going through something so traumatic, then having to deal with the fallout for the rest of your life.
My throat practically seizes shut. I have a feeling I know what she’s trying to tell me, and I don’t think I’m ready to hear those words yet.
She runs a hand down her weary face. “Maybe…”
The Jeep chugs forward a bit before I narrowly miss the bumper of the vehicle in front of me, revealing a sea of traffic that extends all the way into the hills we were scheduled to swerve through before it got dark. But judging by the number of cars, we might be here for a while.
“Maybe what?” I pry, trying to keep my impatience from spilling out.
“Maybe we should…”
“Should?”
“Never mind,” she finishes noncommittally.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes, tacking on a softer tone in hopes that it’ll coax her out of her shell. “What is it?”
She plays with the stringy threads on her shorts, her leg bouncing like she’s ingested three cups of espresso. “Maybe we should cool it with whatever’s going on between us. Keeping one secret is going to be a lot, but I don’t think I can handle keeping two.”
Whatever’s going on between us.
Shit. There isn’t even an actual word to describe whatisgoing on between us. That has to mean it loses credibility, right? It’s not a relationship; it’s not a fling. It’s not…anything. It was just a declaration and some mutual pining between two people who are foremost friends.
I knew her words were gonna have some kick to them, but I wasn’t expecting them to be a goddamn loaded chamber against my temple. Can I even mourn something that never happened?
With my stubborn streak, I always fight to get what I want. But this time, it’s not really up to me.
“Okay,” I relent, afraid that if I elaborate, I’ll say something that makes this ride a thousand times more awkward than it already is.
“Okay?” Faye parrots in disbelief.
Don’t worry, I’m just as shocked as you are.
“If that’s what you want,” I say, digging my half-bitten fingernails into the leather of the wheel. The pressure isn’t anywhere near strong enough to distract me from the feeling of my heart being sliced to pieces.
She turns away from me, and I barely hear her whisper, “It’s not what I want. It’s just what needs to happen.”
In the past forty-eight hours, I’ve confessed my feelings, kissed the woman of my dreams, and somehow lost her. That has to be a fucking record.
“So, we should just pretend like I didn’t kiss you.” There’s no venom in my tone—noanything. It hasn’t hit me yet. I’m waiting for the weight of the situation to collide into me like some doped-up defenseman with a bodychecking agenda.
She chews the inside of her cheek. “Probably.”
I shouldn’t have kissed her in the first place.
“Okay, then.”
“I’m sorry, Kit.”
