Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
And yet…
We need to talk more than I need to be coddled.
When the episode ends, Hayes turns to me. “Want another, baby?”
I shake my head, and he turns off the Chromecast. “Want to go to sleep?”
A stupid lump forms in my throat. Annoying thing. I swallow it. “No. I want to know what happened. You guys went radio silent.” I hand him the ice pack then gently bat Stefan’s hand away.
Hayes sets the ice pack on a towel on the nightstand and drags a hand over his beard. He does that when he gets frustrated with himself. “It’s my fault.”
“Not true,” Stefan corrects.
“It is,” Hayes counters.
“Nope.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re fighting over whose fault it was that both of you shut down?”
“Yeah, but it was mine. I was spinning out the other night. I dragged him into it.” Hayes’s eyes are full of contrition.
“How so?” I ask Stefan.
But Hayes clears his throat and answers for them. “I said if he wanted to go after you on his own, I was fine with it.”
I freeze.
Hayes looks like he just drank battery acid.
I feel that way. Roxy must, too, since she emits a warning bark. Don’t mess with my person.
“You…said that?” I croak.
Hayes frowns. “I just…I…fuck,” he mutters, then drops his head back against the pillow.
Roxy sits up, reading the room, and fires off another warning bark.
My chest aches. I can feel the hurt coming on, the final blow, but I square my shoulders, standing my ground. “If you’re ending this, just end it,” I say. “I told you I’d tell Jessie. I told you I’m fine with it. I meant it.”
Don’t mess with my heart.
Hayes straightens, reaching for my forearm, squeezing gently as if he’s trying to send me a message. “No, I don’t want to end it. Any of this,” he says, gesturing to his friend and me. “I just didn’t expect to…” He groans again, scrubbing a hand over his scruff once more.
“You’re impossible, Hey You,” Stefan says, rolling his eyes, then turning to me. “He’s taken by you just like I am. Okay?”
A joyous laugh bursts from me. “That’s it? That’s the problem?”
“Yes,” Hayes mutters.
“Yes,” Stefan says with a laugh.
They’re so similar and so different.
I hold up my palm. “Let me get this straight. You ghosted me because you like me?”
Hayes nods, resigned to what he did. “Yes. I screwed up.”
“We both did,” Stefan adds. “Neither one of us was any good at talking to you. He told me what was going on, and I should have pushed him to talk to you, but I didn’t. I froze. I didn’t know how to do this without him.”
This. But what is this? What are we? Am I pushy to ask? Fuck it. I’m asking. “What are we doing?”
Hayes scoots closer, rubs my arm some more, then shrugs. “I don’t honestly know, Ivy. But I know this—I don’t want to mess it up. However long it lasts.”
“I don’t either,” Stefan adds, reaching for my hand and linking his fingers with mine.
That seems like something I can get on board with. But Hayes clears his throat, going on. “I’ll do better. I promise. I was a callous jerk. I hate that I treated you that way. My ex-girlfriend said I was aloof and distant, and it killed me tonight when I realized I acted that way with you.”
I didn’t expect that—Hayes confessing all, sharing past wounds. I watch him, waiting for him to say more, hoping he knows it’s safe to tell me.
“We dated in Seattle, and she said all I cared about was my career. Maybe that was true, in hindsight. I felt like a total ass when I was traded to Los Angeles and she didn’t even want to try to stay together long-distance. She said I was cold.” He blows out a breath. “Maybe I was. But the thing is,” he says, meeting my gaze, vulnerability rimming his eyes, “with you, I don’t feel aloof. I don’t feel distant.” Then, like it pains him to say, he adds in a barren whisper, “I feel the opposite.”
My heart doesn’t hurt anymore. It grows.
“And I don’t honestly know what to do about it,” he says. His eyes are big and helpless and it’s so endearing to see this controlled, intense man a little lost.
“Let’s just keep doing this,” I say.
For a moment, Hayes is quiet, contemplative. Then he says, “Yes.”
I turn to Stefan, asking the same. “And do you want that too?”
The man on the other side of me flashes a big, sexy grin. “Sweetheart, I’ve wanted you from the start. I just want you more now.”
I can’t fathom more than this, not when I still feel tender, not when I feel softer for them than I ever expected. But maybe for the rest of this arrangement, we can be all in.