THE CRAZY GOOD SERIES - Rachel Robinson Page 0,125

coming to me. I wrote it off because I thought she wrote me off. I should have known better. She’s too good.

“Depending on what?” I slur.

Her gaze slides all over my body. Her pupils dilate as she forces her lips into a firm line. I throw my arms out to the side, propping them on the arms of chair. May as well give her the view she wants. I smile the big fucking smile.

She pulls off my sweaty running shoes and tosses them across the room. She says, “I’m offering you friendship—if you want it.”

“Depending on what?” I ask again. She rolls her eyes. It’s infuriating because I see how much she’s hiding even in my piss drunk state. “This again? I thought you got over this. If you want it, say you want it. You know what? Just fucking take it, Windsor. Take it. Take it all,” I hiss. Windsor shakes her head, still not speaking. “You want my body? My mouth? Just fucking take them, will you? You already have the one thing that I give a shit about.” I thump my fist on my chest, right on my tattoo. “But you’re too damn na?ve to see that. Aren’t you? God forbid you see anything other than what you want to see.”

She looks unaffected by my words. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. She leaves for the kitchen and comes back holding a glass of water and a damp cloth.

She presses the cloth against my bleeding forehead. “Actually I see perfectly clear. Any ounce of na?veté I had fled the second you left me. It’s friendship or nothing. It doesn’t matter what I want or what you’re trying to offer. That’s it,” she exclaims. “Take it or leave it?” She shoves the glass into my hand. I drain it quickly.

Why did I drink? Why can’t I be completely sober right now? I’m a fuck-up. I swallow down the bitterness and narrow my eyes at her.

“I can’t be your friend, Windsor. I’m supposed to watch you date…fall in love? Then what? Get married? I can be your best man? It’s not in my nature to stand by and watch other people take what’s mine. I look at you and I want you. I wake up and I want you. I breathe and I want you. How do you suppose I go about being friends with the only person I’ve ever wanted?”

Windsor’s eyes widen and her pink bottom lip drops down. “You said you…were done. That you didn’t feel that way about me anymore.”

I shake my head. “No I said blow me. You never asked if I still loved you. I never stopped. You’re giving him another chance. Give me one, too.”

She springs at me, finger pressed into my chest, face so close to mine I can smell her hair. “No. You don’t get to say stuff like that anymore. I know you’ve been through hell, but you get to make the decisions in your life. You’re making bad ones.” Windsor breaks her gaze and looks to the glass spread on the floor from my earlier outburst. Shaking her head, she whispers, “I can’t watch you destroy yourself. It’s not fair to ask me to,” she says, voice breaking the second her anger dissipates.

She’s breaking down. Her mother. She watches her mother do this same thing to herself, and I’m the asshole serving her second helpings. I stand up, pulling every ounce of sober Maverick from his hiding place. Her breathing speeds up.

“Do you still love me?” I’ll change. I’ll pull it together if she picks me. If she says yes, I’ll do anything.

“If I say yes, will you let me go?”

Anything except that. Her eyes are sad. I cup her face in my hand. It’s so soft compared to the hardness in her eyes. She’s asking me to let her go. Like I haven’t been trying for four entire months.

I lean down, buzzing my lips around her ear, and I whisper, “If that’s what you want. Is that what you want?” I meet her gaze. She swallows. The air changes and I know she’s about to say something that will rock me to my core or bring me to my fucking knees.

Her lips brush mine when she whispers, “Love doesn’t die, Maverick. I love you.” She shakes her head. “But I can’t be with you. We’re too different. You’re toxic.” My heart thumps unevenly and my stomach tightens. We may be toxic for each other, but I’m