Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)(71)

I thought about how I wanted to reply. I decided on the truth. “Like shit.”

She didn’t respond. But she did reach over and thread her fingers in mine. My heart leapt at the unexpected touch. The heat of it radiated through my entire body.

She squeezed my hand and leaned into my arm until I looked down at her.

“I’m sorry someone made you feel like it’s hard to love you,” she said.

My chest got tight. She peered at me with so much earnestness I wanted to stop right then and there and kiss her.

But this wasn’t love in her eyes. This was pity. Or comradery. Or friendship. It was like the hug she gave me the other day. It was meant to comfort me. That’s all.

I knew this, and it didn’t change a thing. I still wanted to kiss her.

I was my own greatest enemy now. Because I knew how this ended and wouldn’t lift a finger to save myself. I couldn’t.

I didn’t have to come here today. I could have put up walls between us and stayed home. We didn’t need to keep spending so much time together outside work or family events. But how could I give away even a moment of seeing her and talking to her? I couldn’t justify it.

I would have come no matter where she was, or what she was doing. I would have met her at a party. Or a busy bar or a nightclub. My desire to see her overrode my own self-preservation instincts—in more ways than one.

We got to the house and she let go of my arm. I opened the front door to let Lieutenant Dan and Hunter out to go to the bathroom and we stood on the porch waiting for them.

“Hey,” I said as we watched the dogs sniffing the lawn. “You left your sweater in my truck last night. I brought it.”

“Oh, thanks. Can I get it now? I was actually looking for that.”

“Sure.”

We left the dogs outside. Lieutenant Dan wouldn’t run away. He was too treat-motivated to do anything other than come back in once he did what he had to do.

We came up to my room and I dug in my duffel bag for the sweater while she waited by the hope chest.

I’d kept the sweater next to me on the seat on the drive over so I could hold it to my nose. It smelled like her. I wished I could keep it.

If she lived with me, things like this would be everywhere, all the time. Her shampoo would be in my shower. She’d use my coffee mugs. Her toothbrush would be next to mine on the sink.

I wanted these mundane things so badly I couldn’t even stand it. I’d never wanted this much of Amy. Amy was right when she’d pointed it out. I spent so much time pushing her away, keeping her at arm’s length. But I chased Briana. I wanted to make my life desirable to her so she’d want to be a part of it. I was buying a sofa for the living room because that day she came over she said you couldn’t Netflix and chill in the recliners. I knew there was less than a one percent chance Briana would ever cuddle with me on a couch—but I wanted to have the couch just in case.

If I was being honest, what I really wanted to do with her wasn’t in the living room at all.

I wanted to push her down on my bed in that red dress from the luau and play out every scenario I’d imagined over the last few weeks. Wanted to pull off her underwear, slide her dress up over her hips, bury my face between her legs…

I had to shake it off.

It felt disrespectful. Like I was violating her just by thinking about it. And I’d been thinking about it a lot. I couldn’t help it.

A heavy gust of wind rolled through the drapes, and the door to my room slammed shut.

Briana jumped. “Oh my God, that scared me,” she said with a hand on her chest.

It must have been a back draft. Maybe Alexis and Daniel just came in the front door?

I pulled out the sweater and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said.

Then we just stood there. The door was closed. The lights were dim.

It was just us and a bed.

It felt like the end of a date. An amazing one where the chemistry was off the charts and you wanted to invite them in to stay the night because their leaving felt premature and wrong.

This was the kind of date that never ended. It turned into breakfast the next morning and then dinner the following night and then finally after so many sleepovers you just move in with each other because being together is so organic that doing anything else would be ridiculous.

Her leaving this room felt ridiculous.

I had to remind myself that she wasn’t feeling what I was. She didn’t feel the chemistry. She didn’t feel any attraction to me or attachment to me.

She was doing a job.

If she’d said yes to that date, I would have poured everything into it. I would have treated that opportunity like a once-in-a-lifetime gift. It would have been precious to me, the chance. I never would have worked harder for anything in my life than I would the tiny possibility of convincing her to consider me an option.

But I’d made my interest known, and she’d made her disinterest clear.

And that was that.

She cleared her throat. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

I slipped my hands into my pockets. “Good night.”

I watched her walk to the door like I was watching the wrong ending of a movie I loved and knew by heart.

But when she went to let herself out, the door was stuck shut.





Chapter 31

Briana