still too much…
I could do this. I could fucking control myself around him, if only because I had no other choice.
“This wasn’t why I came in here, I promise.”
Although, I was tempted to bail on the real reason. I could walk out, leave all of it behind me. But I reminded myself it wasn’t just about exposing my wounds. It was the tool to seeing his.
And I could see that fucking loneliness written all over his face. No one was there for him, not in the way I wanted someone to be.
I bit the bullet and reached into my back pocket, retrieving the folded notebook pages, handing them to him.
He glanced at them in shock. As he started sifting through them, I said, “No. Not here, please. When you get home. Those are only for you.”
His expression revealed that he didn’t really know how to react to what I’d just done, that maybe he hadn’t believed I’d follow through. I sure didn’t believe I had.
“I was shit at getting it all down on one page,” I added. “Kept tearing sheets out again and again, so I gave up and figured the truth is just as messy, but it’s all in there, in some way that my mind would allow me to put it together for you.”
I moved closer to him once again, testing my own discipline, my ability to control this raging storm that would have had my arms around him, my nose pressed into his face, my tongue buried in his mouth.
In another world, one not so different from our own, that’s what we would have done, without consequence or regret. His body and mine, our souls battling it out through each lick and caress.
I took a breath to quiet the violent impulses within me before resting my finger against the papers I’d handed him, saying, “That’s…my wound, and when you’re ready, I want to see yours.”
He nodded, his gaze shifting to my lips, then said, “You should probably leave the bathroom now. I actually have to go.”
My laugh pulled me from that desire that had seemed so overwhelming only moments before. “Okay. I’ll leave you alone…for now.”
His subtle smile reassured me in the way I needed, even though I was terrified of leaving him alone with that information.
But with what strength I still had in me, I headed out, starting down the stairs, when I thought, Fuck, I actually need to go to the bathroom too.
22
James
After Kyle had handed me those papers, complete with the torn edges from a spiral-bound notebook, I’d wanted to sneak away from the party to see what they said. Between everything I’d discovered so far and what I suspected, I wanted to pull back the curtain to reveal all the truths Kyle hid from the rest of the world, those things he’d given just to me.
It was a privilege that hadn’t gone unnoticed.
As the party continued, my mind kept revisiting those things he’d shared with me the day of our kiss, the day I realized Kyle Forsythe had led me to see a part of myself I’d previously been unaware of.
When I finally had a chance to get away, I was practically shaking with excitement as I drove home. I wasn’t sure if it was the thrill of getting to know the truth or if I was still reeling from the moment we’d shared in the restroom, when I’d had to use every ounce of strength I possessed to keep from claiming his beautiful mouth again.
But as soon as I rounded the corner at the bottom of the cul-de-sac, seeing my drive, I noticed the familiar SUV, which had the power to catapult me from excitement to frustration instantly. As I pulled alongside it, I expected to see her inside, but she wasn’t.
What the…?
I checked my phone for a message.
Unread texts from Kendra and Miguel, a geometry teacher I’d become friendly with, but nothing else.
I tucked Kyle’s precious secrets in my back pocket before heading along the drive, wondering if she’d really had the audacity to break into my home.
I tried the knob.
Unlocked.
I hadn’t left it unlocked. Had she been so presumptuous to use the key I’d hidden outside in the same place as I used to when we’d lived together? I was on edge, not just from her intrusion, but because it interrupted the private moment I believed I would have with Kyle’s thoughts.
“Honey, I’m home,” Sheila announced, her voice coming from the kitchen.
I headed through the short hall to catch her