Page 13 of Falling Into Forever
Eyes the clearest shade of blue with a ring of navy glower in my direction without really focusing on anything in particular, and it sends me spiraling through a lifetime of memories.
“Well?” she demands, drawing my attention back to the tapping of one tiny foot.
“You need me, Sass. You know you do.” The nickname her grandfather, Grumpy, gave her as a child roughens my voice. It’s scratchy and lower than normal, so I clear my throat.
“No,” she snaps, but her chin quivers, and the ache in my chest intensifies. “I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone. Not anymore.”
“Saylor.” Her name comes out harsher than I intended. The adrenaline of seeing her for the first time in six years is threatening my control.
Does anyone call her Saylor anymore? When she was mine, everyone had made the switch to calling her Sassy years before, so Saylor was a name she reserved only for me. The idea that maybe someone else has earned that right makes me flex my fingers, but it does nothing to work out the tension locking me in place.
She marches down the steps, her shoes crunching in broken glass, and places her palm against my chest like she’s thinking about shoving me. It startles us both, but the pads of her fingers press into my pec, testing the touch.
Each finger sends a jolt of electricity through me like sparks from a welder’s torch, and I fight not to take an involuntary step back.
“You don’t belong here anymore, Dante.” Her little body shakes as her hand falls away, but I draw closer when her eyes dim for a fleeting second.
She’s scared, so I keep my voice pitched low and allow her to hear the honesty in my plea. “Let me help you, Sayl. Please.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Her face turns a painful shade of red at the nickname I’ve whispered in her ear a million times.
When did memories turn into weapons between us?
“I needed your help once, and it didn’t end well. I can’t do it again. You should go home,” she says, putting some distance between us.
So Lena was right. Saylor wrote her truth.
Shit. She isn’t going to make this easy, and I don’t deserve easy, but Jesus. I was twenty-three years old. I didn’t know. I thought I was doing the right thing.
I fight a smile at seeing the physical representation of why everyone in her life calls her Sassy, and she growls.
“We need each other, Saylor.”
She scoffs. It’s a jarring sound against the relaxing backdrop of the lake lapping at the shore behind her home. “I have work to do. Please. Leave.” But her confident stance is belied when her voice quivers.
“Why won’t you hear me out?”
“Because.”
Damn her for making that a complete sentence. She always had, though, and I probably learned it from her, so I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.
“Because why?” I wouldn’t have guessed that Saylor could be any more stubborn than she was as a teenager, but she is. Those heels are digging in, literally and figuratively, right before my eyes.
“Because if your pompous ass can’t remember why we’re no longer friends, it’s not my job to remind you. Now leave.”
Pompous ass?
“Friends?” The word vibrates in my chest. “We were more than friends,Sassy,” I say in a derisive tone. I can’t remember a time in our lives when I’ve ever called her Sassy, and now, I’ve done it twice.
It feels wrong on every level.
“We were neverjustfriends, and you know it. That counts for something.”
She glares at me. For a pint-sized thing, she can be intimidating, and it brings me right back to my sophomore year of high school. Will she lash out like she did when we first met? Will she run? I won her over once—can I do it again? My body pulses with my desire to still be someone she trusts.
I pocket my cell phone and drop my suitcase to the ground. “Fine,” I concede with a condescending smirk that will irritate her. Irritated Saylor, I can work with. “Tell Kate I’m here. She hired me, not you. I’ll leave when she tells me to.”
This makes her pause. “Kate,” she mutters under her breath. Her face puckers with the action, and my smirk spreads into a grin. “I can’t believe she’d do this to me.”
