Fumbled (Playbook #2)(5)

Crap.

I’m going to cry.

I turn my back to TK, biting down on my bottom lip until the burning behind my eyes starts to fade. Then I start to count to ten.

“I’m not sure you losing a job at some nightclub is a bad thing,” TK says, interrupting me.

I spin around on my heel, tears and calming practices long forgotten.

“I don’t make millions like you! I need this job!” I try to go up on my tippy-toes to get closer to eye level, but my heels already have me at my maximum height. “I have bills to pay and mouths—” I cut myself off. “I have responsibilities, TK. I know this isn’t anyone’s dream job, but it does what I need it to do.”

“And you’re telling me working at some club, wearing this”—he gestures to my barely concealed cleavage and my lace-covered thighs—“is the only way for you to do it?”

I’m not one to resort to violence, but the urge to slap him is almost too much for even me to resist.

“I’m not telling you anything because it’s none of your business what I do,” I snap.

The parking lot isn’t the best-lit one on the block, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing TK’s face go red and his shoulders square up. Something else about him I remember, his confrontation position.

“Look.” I gentle my voice, ready for this entire exchange to be finished. “I’m glad I got to see you, and I’m so happy you’re doing well and living your dreams. Really. I couldn’t be more thrilled for you.”

I reach out and take his hands in mine, ignoring the way this single touch wakes up my body from its years-long hibernation.

“But you aren’t part of my life and I don’t need judgment from you when I get enough of it from everyone else. We haven’t seen each other in ten years. We used to be close; now we aren’t. I’m sorry this meeting happened like this, but we aren’t teenagers anymore. We lost touch. That’s okay. You don’t need to worry about me or what I’m doing. I have it all covered.”

I thought this would do the trick. Placate him and he’d go on with his fairy-tale life and forget all about the teenage girlfriend he left behind to pursue his glory.

However, when I try to pull my hands away and make a semi-dignified exit, his hands tighten around my wrists and he’s full-on glaring at me.

“We used to be close?” His voice is almost a whisper.

“Yes, used to be. We were young and thought it was more than it was.” I know it’s not the right answer as soon as the words slip from my lips.

TK drops my wrists like they’re made of fire and takes three giant steps away from me. I’m not sure if it’s for my protection or his.

“I fucking loved you!” His voice echoes off the brick buildings surrounding us. “You disappeared! You changed your number, left without telling a single person where you were going, and your asshole parents refused to say a word. It was like you never existed. And now I see you and you’ve been living in the same fucking city as me for the last six years? What the hell, Poppy?”

He rakes his hands through his thick, long hair and rests them on top of his head, staring at me. Expecting an answer I don’t have. I don’t know if his outburst pissed me off or confused me. The TK I remember was the calm to my storm. Always thinking things through before giving anyone the satisfaction of getting a rise out of him.

Hell, I’m going to need at least a week to sort through everything he just said.

After who knows how long, he closes the distance he just put between us. I try to move back, really, I beg my feet to move, but I can’t. I’m frozen in place watching his chest rising and falling as he approaches. My brain is telling me to run like hell, but my body is already crying out for him.

Traitor.

“There was no reason for me to reach out. I’m not the same girl you knew.” I force out the understatement of the century.

“Bullshit.”

He keeps coming toward me, and it takes every last bit of my restraint not to retreat.

“It isn’t.” I hate the way my voice wavers, the way my insides clench at his proximity.

“I’ve fucking missed you. I don’t know why you ran from me up there, but seeing you is the best thing to happen to me in months.” He seems like he’s back to calm, but his emerald eyes have turned to onyx. One of his hands moves to the back of my neck while the other one falls to the base of my back. “But if you don’t feel the same way, if you really don’t want to see me, say so. I’ll go back inside, pretend this never happened, and we’ll go our separate ways.”

Just say those simple words and this will be over. I’ve spent so many years being angry at him, this should be a relief. But I open my mouth and the words won’t come. Because, dammit, I’ve missed him so much. He was my person and then he was gone. And ever since, I’ve been walking around with an ache in my heart so deep, I’ve become numb.

Maybe this is what I needed. Some sort of closure. A validation of what we had.

“I hate you.” I say the words on an exhale and watch with avid fascination as confusion clouds his features. I know I should stop, but instead, I keep going. Rushing the words out before I convince myself otherwise. “But I’ve missed you.”

“Fucking hell, Poppy.” His voice is heavy with something I don’t recognize and his fingers flinch against my neck.