Prologue #2
“I can see how you look at me,” I said, lowering my voice. “They can see it too. And the sex? Aura, come on. You can lie to everyone else if you want, but how the fuck do you lie this badly to my face?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Careful.”
I laughed, but there was nothing funny in it. “That’s your answer?”
“My answer is that you’re doing a lot right now.”
“I’m tired of sneaking around.”
“We are not sneaking around.”
I stared at her, and she stared back, chin lifted and pride wrapped around her like armor.
“We’re having fun,” she said. “That was the deal.”
The words hit exactly where she meant them to.
That was the deal, and at first, it was nothing more than Aura being so fucking sexy and my dick wanting a part of the party.
At first.
The first night had been a mistake dressed up like a choice. A party. Too much adrenaline after a win. Aura in my kitchen wearing a red sequin mini dress that looked fucking delectable on her, mouthing off to us like she owned the place, then looking at me like she had just discovered I had teeth.
I had followed her onto the back porch. She had insulted my emotional availability. I had told her she hid behind sarcasm because she was scared.
She had kissed me to shut me up.
That was the beginning. Fun, casual, and no expectations.
Except nothing about Aura Clarke had ever been casual for me.
Not the way she argued like she wanted to win and be understood at the same time.
Not the way she watched everyone in a room and pretended she wasn’t cataloging every emotional fracture.
Not the way she loved Bliss and Charm with her whole body but acted like needing anyone would kill her.
Not the way she touched me after midnight, hungry and fierce, then flinched from tenderness when morning got too close.
“You keep saying that,” I said. “Like repeating it enough will make it true.”
“It is true.”
“No, it was true. Maybe. For a minute. But we’re not there anymore.”
Her mouth curved again, meaner this time. “We?”
“Yeah. We.”
“You’re speaking for me now?”
“I’m asking you to stop lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
I took a step closer before I could stop myself. “Bullshit.”
Her eyes flashed hot. “Dial down the begging, Wade. It’s not cute on you.”
There was the blade she always found when the room got too real.
My whole body went still, and Aura saw it. I knew she did. For the first time since we started this, something uncertain flickered across her face, small and fast and gone almost before it existed.
Too late.
I nodded slowly, like my body needed the movement to understand what my chest already did.
“Okay.”
Her brows pulled together. “Okay?”
“Yeah.” I bent, picked up her jeans from the floor, and tossed them onto the bed beside her. “Okay.”
Her eyes dropped to the jeans, then returned to me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m done.”
A short laugh left her, disbelieving and defensive. “Done with what?”
“This.” I gestured between us, and my hand felt too heavy. “The sneaking around. The pretending. The part where I let you act like I’m some guy you call when you’re bored and horny because it makes you feel safer than admitting you give a shit.”
Her face shut down. “Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“I’m not. I’m telling you what you do.”
“You don’t know what I do.”
“I know exactly what you do,” I said, the words coming faster because if I stopped, I might not get them out.
“Every time I try to show you something real, you make a joke. Every time I try to take you somewhere that isn’t a bedroom, you’re busy.
Every time I get too close to something that matters, you turn sharp and act like I’m pathetic for wanting more than your body. ”
Her lips parted slightly, and I hated that it gave me hope. I hated myself more for wanting it.
“I tried, Aura. I tried to take you on a real date. You told me dinner sounded domestic and terrifying. I tried to take you home over break so you could see where I came from. Meet my mom. Meet Skylar and Vivi. See the part of my life that isn’t hockey, this house, or whatever version of me you can keep in the dark.
You told me you didn’t do family field trips. ”
My voice roughened before I could stop it, and I hated that too because she didn’t know what that offer had cost me.
“Do you understand what asking you to meet my family meant to me?”
Aura’s lips parted, but no answer came.
She didn’t know I didn’t bring people home to Crystal Falls.
She didn’t know my mom would have cleaned the house twice after a double shift and pretended she wasn’t exhausted.
Skylar would have acted bored while clocking every detail, and Vivi would have needed three warnings, her headphones, and the right kind of day just to handle someone new sitting at our kitchen table.
She didn’t know all of that mattered because she was worth bringing home to meet the most important people in my life.
“I tried to get you to stay the night without sneaking out at four in the morning. You said you had things to do, then spent the whole day at the ABC apartment watching true crime in my sweatshirt.”
Her throat moved, and she looked away. My chest ached so badly I almost laughed.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “You knew.”
The only reason I knew was because Bliss had FaceTimed Cade while Aura sat behind her on the couch wearing it.
Silence stretched between us as Aura picked up her jeans but didn’t put them on.
“You’re being dramatic.”
“No,” I said. “I’m being clear.”
She looked at me then, eyes guarded and mouth tight. “Clear about what?”
“If I walk out of this room and you still refuse to take this seriously, I’m done.”
She blinked, and for one second, all the attitude left her face. Then she found it again.
She set her jeans down slowly and crossed her arms, my shirt riding up just enough to remind me my hands had been taking her out of it ten minutes ago.
“You’re threatening me now?”
“No. I’m telling you the truth about what’s about to happen before I make the decision for you.”
Her face changed again, but she covered it with a scoff. “That is such a bullshit ego thing to say.”
I stared at her.
She lifted one shoulder like this was boring. Like I was boring. Like the last year hadn’t been eating me alive one secret night at a time.
“Okay, Easton,” she said. “Be done.”
The words went through me clean, with no jagged edge or dramatic explosion. Somehow, that made it worse because the truth finally stood between us without anything pretty left to hide it.
Her hands had felt real. Her mouth had felt honest. Sometimes, when the world got quiet enough, her eyes told a truth her pride kept burying.
But she didn’t believe me, and why would she?
Every time I had reached my limit before, I came back. Every time she brushed me off, I let her touch me again. Every time she pretended we were nothing, I stayed close enough to be used for the moment.
I had taught her exactly how much she could hurt me and still keep me around wanting more.
That was on me.
The realization settled through my body like ice water, cold enough to numb the last stupid piece of me still waiting for her to prove me wrong.
I had made a horrible mistake. Not in loving her, because I didn’t know how to regret that yet. The mistake was thinking she understood what it meant for me to ask her to take me seriously. Thinking she knew I didn’t have extra pieces of myself lying around.
I had taken time, money, and emotional space I barely had and handed them to her because I believed she could understand the weight of it.
I thought if I was patient enough, careful enough, and gave her enough time to stop being scared, she would wake up and choose me before I had to bleed myself dry to prove I was worth choosing.
She watched me with that sharp, pretty face and those guarded eyes, and I finally understood that she really didn’t take me seriously.
I let out a slow breath and nodded.
Aura’s expression faltered. “Easton.”
“No.” My voice came out calm, which scared me more than yelling ever could have. “You don’t get to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Sound worried now that I’ve stopped chasing you.”
Her mouth closed.
I walked to my dresser and pulled on a clean shirt. My hands were steady, which felt insane because nothing inside me was. I grabbed my socks from the floor, shoved my feet into my slides, then picked up her jacket from the chair near my desk.
I held it out, and she stared at it like she didn’t understand what it was.
“Aura.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, and for the first time all night, I saw something real there. It might not have been enough to save us, but it was real.
Fear, shock, and the beginning of recognition arriving too late flickered across her face before she could shove it back behind that sharp, untouchable mask.
“I love you,” I said.
Her face went completely still, like the words had hit something vital and frozen every part of her before she could decide whether to fight, run, or pretend she hadn’t heard me.
The words weren’t planned. They weren’t strategic or fair, probably. But they were true, and I was done letting the truth rot inside me because she refused to look at it.
“I love you,” I repeated, quieter this time. “And I know that makes this worse. I know you’re probably going to take it and turn it into something ugly in your head because that’s what you do when things matter. I’m not saying it so you’ll say it back.”
Her eyes shone suddenly, but she blinked hard before the tears could become anything I had permission to see.
“I’m saying it because I need you to understand what you’re throwing away.”
She didn’t move, even when I set her jacket on the bed.
“If you want me—not this, not the sex, not the secret, not whatever little pocket of control you think this gives you—but me, Aura, then you need to say it before I walk away from this.”
My voice caught, and I hated it.
I hated that even now, standing in the wreckage of us, there was enough of me left to make one last offering. I pressed my hand hard against the center of my chest and waited.