being an asshole. His lips are plump, and I know firsthand just what wonders they can work on my body. A shiver rolls down my spine at the memories that suddenly accost my mind.
I find myself getting lost in his eyes. They’re the very hue of ice caps in the Arctic, rimmed cooly with a cornflower blue. The lightness there, the soft flecks remind me of summertime as kids. The way sunrays warmed our skin and glinted off our eyes as we sat outside with each other, basking in the warm glow.
“Don’t go.”
I look down at his hand still clamped around my wrist, and his grip eases, though he does it slowly. I can’t tell if it’s my imagination or wishful thinking, but he seems hesitant to let go. To sever the connection we haven’t shared in years.
“Fine,” I huff, steeling my spine. I turn my back on him, rifling through my bag that’s resting on the counter to make myself look busy. I just need a moment to gather myself and get my head back on straight. That was the problem with first loves; this is what being around them did to weak girls like me. I still felt like I couldn’t breathe like my heart belonged to him, because all it’s tried to do is rip its way out of my chest and into his feeble hands. I should hate this man, should be disgusted by his very presence for cheating on me all those years ago, but alas, here I am anyway.
There were a lot of things about the night I learned he was cheating on me that still didn’t make sense, but seeing as I was twenty-two and my heart was broken, I wasn’t exactly interested in digging any further into the greater details. All I knew was, the boy I’d been in love with most of my life, the one I had lost my virginity to and given my heart to, had broken it like I never meant anything to him. That was what I needed to remember during moments like these.
Not all the good times we shared, but the bad times.
And all the pain that came after.
• • •
The last few sessions with Reeve have gone well. He’s already making great progress and should be better and back on the ice in no time. But even as his body gets better, I can’t help but feel the pang in my heart. Once he’s back to normal, that means his time with me will be over. And we’ll go back to ignoring each other while pretending the other doesn’t exist.
The tension since that day he touched me has only gotten worse. It’s like that simple touch opened doors for us. Doors we both weren’t sure we wanted to open. It was out of fear on my part, not so sure what his deal was. Every touch after that one has felt wrong, but oh, so right. My hands lingered a little longer on his skin, and the way he gazed at me wasn’t just with a heat that was brewed from hatred. It was something else entirely. Something I was all too familiar with.
Each day felt like the tension grew in thickness. It was getting harder and harder to breathe in there with him. He made it hard to think. I could feel his gaze on me when I was working. He never looked away, and I hated that. I hated how he wanted to know more about me and what I’ve been up to for the past few years we’ve been apart. I thought for sure he would’ve confided in my brother or asked him about me over the years, but obviously, I was wrong. He knew nothing about what I was up to. And even though I was happy he was expressing interest, I was also hurt that he didn’t care enough to ask about me before. It was like he didn’t care at all. Honestly, I shouldn’t have been too surprised since I was the empath between the two of us. I guess I just hoped that at some point, he’d regret ruining what we had.
We were good together. Not because I found him insanely attractive and the sex was incredible, but because we were friends before we were anything else. He knew me better than I knew myself sometimes, and that scared me.
When I took this job, I talked myself into believing I could do this—I could be around my first