Say You Still Love Me(61)

I can’t help but smile. That is such a Kyle thing to do. “And something came up.”

“Something came up.” He grins crookedly. “And, here we are, seeing each other every day again. Just like back then.”

“Yeah. You see me passing by you. See me sitting in an office as you walk by. You see me, but you won’t talk to me. Remember? ‘Let’s keep it simple’? Something like that?” My voice is light but tinged with accusation.

He dips his head and rubs at the back of his neck again. “I panicked a bit there, at the start.”

“You were a complete asshole to me.”

He winces. “I know. Seeing you brought back a lot of memories.” His gaze flickers to mine, and in it I see a hint of the vulnerable boy I once knew.

“For me, too,” I say softly, feeling the sudden urge to reach across the table and take his hand. I ball my fist tight to resist. He’s not yours anymore.

That’s right. He’s not mine.

“What does your girlfriend have to say about this? She moved across the country with you, didn’t she?” Does she know all the reasons why? Because if I were her, I sure as hell would want to know. And then I’d skin him in his sleep for suggesting the move.

Kyle bites his bottom lip again as he regards me evenly. “I live with Jeremy, Piper. He’s the one who moved across the country with me, and he was happy to get away from the bullshit back home, too.”

“What? I thought . . .” I stammer, my heart beginning to race. “But you said that you had a . . .” My words drift as I replay the conversation. “No, you didn’t say that.”

“You just assumed it,” he says, adding softly, “and I didn’t clarify.”

“Why not?”

His Adam’s apple bobs with a hard swallow. “I don’t know. Easier, I guess?” Under his breath, I catch him mutter, “At least, I thought it would be.”

My mind is swirling.

Kyle is single. Available.

Not off-limits to me.

Despite how much he hurt me all those years ago, and my irritation with how our reconnection has gone so far, I can’t ignore this feeling that I’m about to float out of this chair, that my blood is rushing too fast for my heart to handle.

He clears his throat. “Anyway, I realized as soon as I saw you that this might have been my dumbest idea yet, coming here. But it was already too late—”

“What do you mean? Why is it dumb?”

He chuckles softly. “Come on, Piper . . . We’re not teenagers at summer camp anymore.”

I frown. What is he saying, exactly? “We’re the same people,” I hear myself murmur, though I doubt that’s true on both accounts.

“You always pretended you were like the rest of us. You can’t do that anymore, though. I mean, look at you.” His eyes flicker to my shirt again, drawing my own eyes down.

“What? My blouse? What’s wrong with my blouse?”

“Absolutely nothing. It’s definitely not the Wawa red T-shirt, though.” That somehow sounds bad, coming from him.

I know what this is about: class and money. Kyle always did seem to have a chip on his shoulder about how much money he presumed my family had, and how little his did. And that was back when he had no idea just who my family actually is.

“Weak.”

His lips twitch, and I wonder if he remembers that first day, out on the cliff, when he was taunting me to jump.

“I’m still me. You can still talk to me. We can still be . . . friends.” The word feels all wrong against my tongue. We were never really friends. We were always so much more.

“Right.” He smiles. “You’re gonna hang out with your building’s security guard in your spare time?”

“If I want to, yes.”

“Your father’s going to be okay with that?”

“My father doesn’t have a say in my personal relationships.”

His eyebrows arch. “You sure about that?”

“I’m a grown woman.” It comes out more sharply than I intended. I temper my tone. “If he had a say, I’d still be engaged to David.”

“That pompous ass in the Maserati.” Kyle grins. “I can’t believe you were going to marry that guy.”

“Trust me. I know. Thank God I smartened up when I did.” I laugh, and my chest feels like it’s going to explode with warmth. I’m actually laughing with Kyle again. “This is so surreal.”

“I know,” he says softly, and I catch a sparkle of mischief in his eyes before it’s extinguished, and silence takes over.

I hesitate, but then admit, “I looked for you.”

He dips his head but doesn’t answer.

“I went to Poughkeepsie, to the Seven-Eleven.” There was only one in the whole town, thank God. “There was an old lady in the apartment. She said that you’d moved.” I remember not being able to breathe as I knocked and listened to the dull shuffle of feet on the other side. And then, when the woman in the ratty blue robe delivered the crushing news—that she heard the family before her hadn’t paid their rent all summer and had skipped town—I thought I was going to throw up, right there on her doorstep. I managed to keep the tears at bay until I was in the parking lot.