Craving The Player (Amateurs In Love Book 1)(85)

Instead of doing what every fibre of my being wants and needs me to, I harden my features and with my tone like ice, say, “Get out of my house, Sophie.”

My words seem to piss her off even more, just like I knew they would. With a look that probably could have tossed me six-feet under had I not already felt like death, she stabs a finger into my sternum. “You have some nerve, jackass.”

“What the hell did I do to you?” I swallow past the bile in my throat and move away from her, closing the apartment door with more force than necessary. My fingers curl into fists that I want to throw through a wall, but I choose to bang them against my thighs instead.

“You did everything!” she spits, glaring so hard that it wouldn’t surprise me if she burst a blood vessel in her temple. “Do you have any idea the damage you’ve done? Or do you just not care?”

“How I feel isn’t any of your concern. Now get out.” I gesture to the door with as much arrogance as I can muster up through the growing knot in my stomach. If only Sierra could see me now. She would have wished that she kept those pretty words inside her mouth and saved them for somebody deserving of them.

“Isn’t any of my concern? Sierra is the only person I give a shit about in this world. And I was the one who took her home crying last night after you shattered her to pieces. I’ve never seen her that way before. So fucking lifeless, like the light was snatched right out of her soul.”

I push back the wall of guilt rising in my chest before forcing myself to shrug. My insides are screaming for mercy as they’re torn apart by the reality of what happened last night. Of what I did. My next words sound as weak as they feel. “Sierra is strong. She’ll be fine.”

Sophie barks out a humourless laugh and takes a brave step closer to me. “You’re even dumber than I thought you were, you know that? I hoped you were more than just a pretty face, but turns out you’re even less.”

“I don’t care what you think of me.” I can’t even keep eye-contact with her. She wears her disgust for me with pride, and it carves into my back deep enough to scar. Sophie doesn’t know me, and I don’t know her, but we used to share something so fucking deep, something that made us connected on some weird, spiritual level.

We don’t like each other—I’m pretty sure she would volunteer my name as Tribute if given the chance—but we did respect each other. Now, though? There’s no respect there, not on her end. And I can’t blame her for that.

“What kind of person walks away from someone when they tell them they love them? You can’t honestly want me to believe that you don’t love her too. I’ve seen it!” She ridicules me fearlessly, not backing down an inch. There’s a warrior inside of this tiny girl. One that doesn’t know how to tell when the battle has already been lost.

“I don’t give a shit what you believe, trust me.” I snort, crossing my arms across my bare chest and digging my nails into my biceps.

“You keep saying that but somehow, I don’t believe you,” she nearly sings, a cockiness flooding her confident tone that has the same effect on me as nails on a chalkboard. “We both know that you could have easily thrown me out by now if you didn’t want to hear what I had to say somewhere very deep in that bitter, frozen chest of yours.”

I narrow my sharp gaze. “Get out. This is the last time I’m going to say it.”

“She’s leaving in four hours. There’s still time to tell her how you feel before she’s gone.”

My breath hitches and my eyes widen slightly before I shake my head shutting down the thoughts before they come tumbling in. “She’ll have fun in Toronto.”

“You have got to be the most stubborn person I have ever met,” she groans. “You’re lucky I care enough about Sierra to even waste my time standing here arguing with you.”

“Feel free to leave. I’ve only told you to do so a hundred damn times.” I gesture to the door again with a pointed look.

“That’s not what I’m trying to—” she cuts herself off by sucking in a dramatic breath and closing her eyes briefly. “You have one last chance, Braden. In four hours, you lose that chance. The chance to ever see her again. To ever hold her or see her smile again. Is that what you want? Because I know that’s not what she wants.”

The jaw-droppingly gorgeous white smile flashes in my mind, making my lungs tighten to the point of near suffocation. The urge to tear at my chest becomes overwhelming as I attempt to ignore the regret swarming my head with every flash of her tear-stained cheeks. The unmistakable taste of metal rings in my mouth as I clamp down on my tongue, her words playing over and over in my head like a broken record.

I love you.

Three words that turned every inch of me stone-cold without warning. The three words that I should have said back to her, but couldn't—wouldn't. Not when I knew they would have come with the plea of asking her to stay. To give up the chance of a lifetime, one that she deserves more than anything because I’m too much of a chicken to take the chance on her and me.

“It’s too late. I can’t drop my entire life on a pipe dream.”

“Braden, if I had someone look at me the way that you look at Sierra, I wouldn’t doubt love—real, passionate love—ever again. Don’t give that up because you’re afraid. We’re all afraid. But sometimes it’s worth the fear of the unknown. And I think you two are worth it. Don't you?”