I snuggle into Ainsley until sometime later when Easton hand delivers us bowls with our steaming dinner filling them.
When I smile at him, he stares at me with curious eyes. I’m telling him thank you in silence, but my mind clings to something else. Something deeper.
Maybe I’m thanking him for more.
That night there’s a knock at my bedroom door. It’s a foreign sound at this point, but I quietly tell the person responsible to come in knowing who it is.
When East enters, one hand is shoved in the pocket of his jeans, and the other is holding onto the edge of the door. “Mind if I come in?”
The soft words aren’t lost on me as he stays near the door like I’ll tell him no. “Sure.”
He steps further inside and quietly closes the door behind him, lingering near it. “I come as a friend.”
My bedside lamp is on because I’m doing last minute homework, so I can see the genuine half-smile he shoots me. “Is that what we are?”
One of his shoulders lifts. “I think so.”
“Good.” I smile. “What’s up?”
He clears his throat, waiting for a moment before answering. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. You know, from earlier. I could see it in your eyes when you told Ainsley about her dad. You were upset.”
I blink at him, quickly looking down at the papers scattered in front of my crossed legs. I wasn’t expecting him to notice, much less ask me that. But am I really surprised? “He was my best friend and I’ve always felt his loss in such a deep way that I refused to think about it for too long. I never talked about him much if I could help it.”
“You loved him.” It’s not a question.
“In some ways.” I pick up a paper and stare absently at it. “There are so many forms of love and I only ever focused on the one I thought mattered most. I never thought about what other kinds he offered me. I didn’t think they were enough.”
“And now?”
Now it doesn’t matter. “Now…” Clicking my tongue, I drop the paper and look at him. “I realized very recently that I don’t want to hold onto what I thought I felt then. It hurts too much.”
He studies me but doesn’t speak.
“Having you in my life has been unexpectedly great,” I admit sheepishly. “I don’t mean that as a come on or anything. For me, I didn’t really let anyone in because I didn’t want many people to know how messed up my head was for pining over a man who clearly didn’t want me. But I’m learning to let that shame go.”
His eyes don’t wander from me as I deliver that quiet statement. I feel his gaze on my skin, burning, tingling. I’m hyperaware that he’s giving me his full attention and I’m not used to it. With him or anyone. “Can I ask you something?”
I shrug. “Go for it.”
“You mentioned a guy from your past that you and … Danny grew up with. Is that the same one you went out to dinner with?”
Lips parted, I stare at him with wrinkled brows. Easton has always been intuitive. In many ways, he’s the fly the on the wall who observes everything and silently puts the pieces together. In fact, I forgot I even mentioned Carter before the dinner fiasco that put a wedge between East and me. “Uh … yeah. It is.”
His face twists for a microsecond. If I blinked, I would have missed it. He gives me a terse nod and that’s it.
“What?”
He shakes his head.
“East?” I unfold my legs and swing them over the side of the bed. “Come on, tell me. I can tell you’re thinking something. Friends share.”
His eyes heat, darkening as if he takes that in an entirely different way. “Oh, trust me. I know that well now.”
My face turns red. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it,” I grumble. Shaking it off, I give him a pleading look. “Please?”
Sighing, he scrubs a hand down his face and clasps it around his neck. “Just be careful. I think it’s good you have somebody to talk to about the shit you went through, but sometimes we latch onto the wrong things.”
The wrong…? “What do you mean?”
“Nothing.” He reaches for the door. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Carter would never hurt me,” I tell him confidently.
His jaw ticks. “Okay.”
When he leaves after saying goodnight, I wonder what the look on his