Page 15 of Falling Into Forever
Always fighting. She’s even more disagreeable now than when I first met her. And it makes me smile like a cocky teenager.
Lowering my head a few inches, I stare into her eyes. “That’s not part of the plan, sweetheart.”
Frost fills her features as she retreats.
“We don’t have to be friends,sweettits.” God, how I’ve missed that mouth. “You do you, and I’ll do me. Okay?”
My scalp prickles at her tone. I worked incredibly hard once upon a time to be someone she trusted. And that all-consuming need to be in her sphere calls to me now.
I nod because I can’t form words, and her anger singes the space between us. It speaks of so many stupid mistakes made in youth—hers and mine.
She’s muttering curse words under her breath when the squeaky screen door opens and Kate walks out.
“What the hell are you doing, Kate?” Saylor’s angry tone is clipped, but the subtext is clear—how could you go behind my back like this?
“You two obviously have…something. Whatever history is causing you to be a vibrating ball of rage right now, you need to let it go. You’ve both gone and fucked up your careers. The way I see it, the only way forward is together.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I almost laugh. Kate did my job for me.
I’m an idiot. I should have seen this all along. Trent outing our relationship and connecting it to Saylor’s books might be what saves my reputation and her career.
Everyone loves a comeback story. And a second-chance love story is enough to dull the shine of my brother’s lies if played correctly.
“He’s not moving in with me.” Saylor sounds unhinged, and I can’t say that I blame her. She already made me leave her once, and I was the blindsided jerk who listened.
Does she care that it nearly killed me?
I wish I could say I never looked back, but every action since I left proves otherwise. The photos, the tattoos, the lonely nights filled with memories that try to drown me.
She broke my heart, so I searched for meaning and a place to belong. I went as far away from Connecticut as I could get because I thought it was the only way to move on from her.
But now her pain slices through me with every lash of her tongue. I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my whole life.
She paces three steps to the right, spins, then takes three steps back. Her hands are fluttering through the air as she tries to organize her thoughts.
But Saylor is at a disadvantage right now. She isn’t seeing our plan yet, and it gives me a perverse sense of…something. This woman creates a reaction in me that’s causing a riot, and yet the thought of annoying her until she breaks down and accepts this path forward calls to me on a visceral level.
After all, it’s my tenacity that let me into her world once, and this time I have everything to lose.
“We’re about to become America’s sweethearts,” I say, flashing her a wink.
A painful choking sound sizzles somewhere inside Saylor. Her eyes are far too wide, and her skin turns nearly purple. Is she holding her breath? She flaps her hands at her side like she’s trying to pull words from thin air, and when nothing comes, she shuts out the world like she used to by skirting the glass, stomping inside, and slamming the screen door. A few seconds later, Jimmy Eat World’s “A Praise Chorus” blasts from a speaker somewhere inside.
The world moved on around us, but some things never change.
The music hits me like an anvil. Her sister used to blast this album when she was overwhelmed by raising her younger sisters. It was her sign to the world, and us, that she needed a break.
Are you still living in this pain, Saylor?
I’m staring after her when Kate pokes me hard in the chest.
“I don’t know all the details,” she hisses, drawing my attention away from Saylor’s front door. “But since you’re here, I’m going to assume you know you fucked up. Make it right, and don’t do it again.”
This woman should be in the mob. Her threats could make a grown man shit his pants.
“I was a kid, Kate. A kid who didn’t know how to handle her grief and took her word at face value without realizing how much pain she was in.”
I watch as understanding hits.April Rainwasn’t any story. It’s our story. “So you walked away and left her alone?” Her voice is a harsh whisper of disbelief.
