Chapter 17 #2
He wasn’t sure where this was going. “I like you as you are. If you started spouting poetry or talking about the futility of our life purpose, you wouldn’t be Madison.”
“What I’m saying is that I’m not introspective. I don’t journal at Paris cafés like Thea. I don’t listen to self-improvement podcasts like Brooke. I don’t give significance to you and me having the same happy thought. It was just the first one that popped into my mind.”
He had to hide his smile behind his glass. Didn’t she know how incredible that was? He thought she did. She just didn’t want to go there. Fine. He would give her a pass on it tonight. They had plenty to sift through. They each drank as if by mutual silent agreement.
“So where are we?” She locked her arms over her chest after she set her drink down, the black of her outfit making her eyes appear more golden, the way a black panther’s eyes seemed to glow brighter in the wild.
He gestured between them. “Have you ever thought about us trying to do this?”
Her mouth parted before she snapped it shut. “This? What’s this?”
She was being purposely obtuse now, and he was so not giving her a pass. “I mean date. Go out. Be a couple. We’re great friends. We’re hot for each other. I think it could be good.”
Her barstool suddenly screeched on the floor as she shoved out of it, chin lifting. “Good? Yeah, it could be good. We’d hold hands and feed each other little bites of something. Then we’d bang until sweat dripped on the floor.”
She paused. Desire shot through him. She gulped. He heaved out a breath. Because it was way too easy to imagine. “It would be good, Mad. Really, really good.”
The shadows around her eyes were suddenly back. “But what about after?”
“After?”
She stalked the few remaining steps between them and smacked him in the shoulder. “After! Because it’s not going to last. Then we’ll be angry or hurt—and not best friends probably. We’ll blow up this whole family of ours, dammit! I don’t want that, Kyle.”
Didn’t he know the same cold fear? He reached for her, wanting to assure her, but she knocked his hand to the side.
“I can’t do that, Kyle.”
That damn painful knot was back in his throat as he gazed at her.
She was looking at him, all scared woman, all dear friend.
He knew how brave she was and that she feared this was almost too much for him.
He remembered Sawyer saying they were both afraid.
Kyle had felt it in himself and seen it in her, but he hadn’t realized how afraid she was.
The sight of her like this nearly brought him to the floor.
“You don’t believe we could make it.”
She shook her head. “No, my track record isn’t great. Don’t take this wrong, Kyle, but neither is yours. If Paisley was the woman you thought you wanted to spend your life with, then you’re looking for something a whole hell of a lot different than me.”
“But things didn’t work out with Paisley,” he shot back. “I wasn’t happy. Maybe I was like Brooke. I’d settled for the wrong person, the wrong kind of life, because I didn’t think anything out there could be better for me.”
She only kept staring, her outer armor coming back up with every heaving breath she took.
“Coming back to Paris, I feel differently. I want to be as happy as the rest of our roommates.”
She bit her lip so hard he was afraid she’d make it bleed. “I want you to be happy too,” she finally said softly. “More than anything. Maybe you should—”
He slowly started to die because he knew what was coming, and he didn’t think he could take it.
“Get back out there, slugger.” She socked him in the shoulder like she was one of the guys. “You’re a hot, single guy in Paris. You’d have chicks all over you.”
He looked away, because he couldn’t take seeing the desperation in her face as she tried to shove him toward another woman. “Mad, right now I can’t imagine ever wanting anyone but you.”
Her breath shattered, right there in the silent kitchen.
“Kyle, I know what I’m asking isn’t great or easy, but if we want to stay best friends and keep our group together—and we agreed we do—then we have to figure out something.
I tried with Rico. I can keep trying with other people, but I’m working all the time.
You at least could go on a dating app or hang out at a café every morning. ”
He had to bite his tongue to keep from playing devil’s advocate. Wouldn’t this only bring up other issues? Not to mention it wouldn’t be fair to whoever they were dating if they were still best friends, seeing each other all the time, and attracted to each other.
His hope for this conversation had seeped away. But he wasn’t a quitter, he reminded himself, and he wasn’t called the Golden Boy for nothing.
“So we keep looking for a solution, then?”
She nodded crisply, tense now. Because she knew she’d pushed him too far.
“Then I’ll see you in the morning,” he told her, making himself flash her a smile as he stood and walked toward the doorway. “Unless you want to catch a late movie?”
She was digging her combat boot into the tile floor when he craned his head over his shoulder to look at her. “Nah, I’m beat. I’ll…ah…see you in the morning. Maybe I’ll make you Huevos Rancheros. That means Rancher Eggs.”
He slid her a look.
She fidgeted.
“That would be great, Mad.”
Stalking out of the kitchen, he took the stairs two at a time. He’d hoped she’d accept his invitation to the movie. It would have been the easier way. But no.
So it was the hard way, then.