The Girl Next Door - Emma Hart Page 0,51

in and hit the button for our floor, staring as the doors slid shut again.

Still silence.

It stretched forever between us, and the worst part was that I knew that the longer it went on, the harder it would be to break. And I didn’t mean break by just saying goodnight, I meant by actually finishing the discussion from earlier.

Because it wasn’t finished. I knew that. She knew that. And it had to be finished at some point—sooner rather than later was my preference.

Yet I could see how tired she was. I could see it in the small dark circles that were forming under her eyes, how the spark had diminished in them just a little. She carried her shoulders slightly hunched over, and she had her arms wrapped around her waist as if she were hugging herself for comfort.

No matter how badly I wanted to finish it, she needed to sleep right now.

The elevator stopped on our floor, and I once again put my hand out so Ivy could get out safely. She dug in her purse for her keys as I pulled mine from my pocket. Once she’d unlocked her door she paused and turned back to me.

Her tired eyes met mine. “Sorry for finishing your birthday on a downer.”

“Don’t worry. Get some sleep and text me in the morning, okay?”

She nodded and stepped inside. All I wanted to do was wrap her in my arms and drag her to my room where I could fall asleep with her curled up next to me.

I sighed and let myself into my apartment as soon as she was safely inside hers. It was a jolt, given that it still looked like a party store had thrown up in here.

“Oh, you’re back.” Anna strolled into the kitchen. “How was your night?”

“Fine.” I tossed my keys onto the coffee table and joined her, gratefully accepting the water she offered.

“Fine? Ooh, that doesn’t sound good.” She closed the fridge and leaned over the island, toying with the bottle. “What happened?”

I waved my hand as I uncapped my water. “It’s nothing. It’s fine.”

“Did Ivy get hit on?”

“No. And that doesn’t help.”

“Then tell me what happened.”

She wasn’t going to give this up.

I briefly recapped the conversation I’d had with Ivy not so long ago.

“And you’re bummed? Over that?” Anna raised an eyebrow.

“Forget it.” I pushed off from the island and headed for my room. “Forget I said anything.”

“You’re so dumb.”

I stopped and dropped my head back. “Now what am I doing wrong?”

“Why don’t you fight it?”

“Fight what? Her feelings?” I turned back to her. “Her feelings are valid, Anna. I can’t force her to feel things she’s not sure about.”

“She is sure. She knows how she feels, Kai, it’s everything else that’s muddling it for her. It’s only been two weeks since you found out she was pregnant. Just go and tell her she’s fucking insane and you know she has feelings for you.”

“Yeah? And how would you react if someone said that to you?”

“I’d punch them in the dick.”

“Exactly. And I like my dick how it is, thanks.”

“Oh, you deserve the dick punch,” Anna mused, reaching up and tying her hair in a messy knot with the hair tie from her wrist. “I just… Don’t want to see you hurt because you didn’t have the balls to fight for her.”

“What on Earth are you talking about?”

“I knew Kyle was cheating on me,” she said, glancing down. “I didn’t have proof or anything, but I knew. The signs were there. The relationship was over a long time, and he’d stopped fighting. If I did something that annoyed him, he ignored it, whereas before he would have told me to quit it. If something went wrong or there was a miscommunication, he wouldn’t try to fix it. There was no fight for the relationship or for me. It was only me fighting. I would have given anything for him to have told me the truth, whether that was him fighting for me or him moving on.”

“You think Ivy wants me to fight for her?”

“I think she wants you to fight for her feelings,” Anna clarified. “Because she’s so busy fighting her own body right now, she probably doesn’t have a lot of fight left for her heart.”

“So I have to prove to her that what she feels for me is real?”

“It wouldn’t hurt. I mean, if you went over there and kissed her right now and told her that you know what she feels for you is