Page 46 of The Kissing Part
“Because that is not a thing. I’ve never lived with a guy before, but you asked, and after your convincing argument, I decided yes.” She places her hand on my jaw and gazes into my eyes. “I never got over you.”
“But you were with—”
“No one ever meant as much to me as you did.” She rubs my chest. “So we good? I move in for our relationship, and you go to Vancouver with me for work? I’m sure I can pull some strings and make a job happen for you.”
The old hurts come rushing back. “How was I supposed to know you never got over me? You kept in touch with everyone but me. I had to hear from Mom, Harper, and Mackenzie how great you were doing. You even invited them to visit and not me.”
“Because you were more important than any of them!”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Okay, hypothetically, if I’d invited you to visit, then what? You’d ultimately have to go home for school or college or, I don’t know, your life. It would’ve hurt both of us to get together and separate over and over and over. But now we’re in a different place in our lives.”
I’m quiet, unsure if I’m willing to pick up where we left off. It’s only been two weeks since she crashed into my life!
She cups my face in her hands. “When my bodyguard quit, the first person I thought of was you. I realized I’d never really let you go, and I hoped this was an opportunity to see if there was still something there between us. And there is.”
I pull away from her. “I get it. You’re lonely, you can’t trust guys you meet in the industry, so you go back to your summer fling and try to make something happen. I have a life, and you can’t just expect me to drop everything to fit into yours.”
I walk out.
“Where’re you going?” she yells down the hallway.
I stop and turn around. “Back to our original arrangement. I’ll be on the couch. Tell Olivia she has until the end of the week to find a replacement for me.”
“What about Harper and Mackenzie’s safety?” she asks.
“You should’ve thought of that before you dragged them into this.”
I march downstairs, pissed at the way Shayla’s turning my life upside down and for what? Nostalgia? I’m still not happy about Harper and Mackenzie living with her either, but they knew the risk as well as Shayla. It’s time I stop playing big brother, stop trying to protect everyone. We’re all adults here.
I can’t wait to get back to my real job.
* * *
Shayla
I scoot back against the cushioned headboard next to Mackenzie. We’re in her room. Harper’s sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed. I’ve just shared the whole Owen story with them.
“So temperamental,” Harper says. “And they say women are the emotional ones. Ha!”
“He never got over you,” Mackenzie says.
“Oh, he’s over me.”
“Brrap!” Harper makes a game-show buzzer sound for wrong answer. “Sorry, try again.”
“He proposed the night before I left that summer,” I say. “I never told you that.”
“Oh my God, what did you say?” Harper asks.
I lift my palms. “Nothing. I didn’t have an answer at sixteen.”
Mackenzie turns to me. “To be fair, it’s pretty quick to invite him to move with you to Vancouver after one night of animal sex.”
Harper snorts. “True. By the way, you sound like a dying deer. I told Owen that this morning.”
I throw a pillow at her. “Stop embarrassing him. And me.”
