Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
LUCA
Bastion had his hands buried in his hair, elbows on his knees, jaw clenched so tight I swore his teeth would crack.
He hadn’t said much since the door slammed shut behind me.
Neither had I.
The room was quiet—except for the sound of him breaking.
And me not knowing how to stop it.
“We did something,” he muttered suddenly, voice low and hoarse. “We had to have.”
He still wasn’t looking at me.
Eyes locked on the floor like it held the answer he couldn’t find.
“Why else would she pull back like this?” His voice cracked. “Why else would she leave us ?”
She hadn’t. Not yet.
But fuck, it was starting to feel like it.
And the worst part?
I couldn’t even bring myself to lie to him.
I stood there frozen, fists clenched at my sides, skin burning .
Not from shame. Not from guilt.
From rage.
White-hot and unrelenting.
Rage that I could taste every time I thought of Kingston’s smug fucking laugh echoing through the dorm.
Cameron’s goddamn cologne still lingering in the hallway.
They got to be around her.
Laugh with her.
Sit next to her on the couch while we watched her pull away from us.
My stomach turned.
Bastion looked up finally. “You’ve seen it too, right?”
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t have to.
“She won’t meet my eyes,” he said. “Won’t let me near her. Always out of the room when I wake up—always gone .”
I swallowed hard, jaw flexing.
He kept going. “I tried to ask her what I did—what we did. She just smiled. Said she was busy.”
That word. Busy.
I’d heard it earlier too.
Her voice still soft from the shower, her towel riding low…
I wanted to tear my own fucking skin off.
“I can’t fix this if I don’t know what we broke,” Bastion rasped. “I can’t —” He broke off, fists pounding his knees.
That’s when I snapped.
“Maybe it wasn’t us.”
He blinked.
“Maybe it’s them,” I hissed. “Maybe it’s the way they look at her like she’s up for grabs. Like we didn’t fucking mark her first.”
Bastion didn’t move.
“They circle her like vultures,” I growled. “Laugh too hard at her jokes. Find excuses to walk her to class. You think I don’t see it?”
He finally looked at me.
“ I see it,” I said, breathing hard. “Every goddamn day.”
“And it’s driving you insane,” he said quietly.
“No,” I muttered. “ It’s already driven me. ”
There was a beat of silence.
Then: “Luca…”
“I had her against the vanity tonight,” I said, voice low, hands shaking. “Towel. Wet. Breathing hard.”
His eyes darkened.
“But I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even kiss her properly.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Because I looked into her eyes and saw her slipping away.”
Bastion shut his eyes like it physically hurt him.
“And I can’t—” My voice cracked. “I can’t watch you fall apart and hold myself together while she pulls away from us both.”
I glanced at the clock on the wall. Midnight.
I already knew what was coming.
“She won’t come to bed until one,” I muttered, voice hollow. “That’s when she thinks we’ll be asleep.”
Bastion didn’t respond. He didn’t have to.
I sat down hard on the edge of the mattress, then let myself fall back against the bed, my arm flung over my face.
“In a few hours,” I said quietly, “she’ll come in here, crawl into that bed... and just ignore us.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty.
It was filled with all the things we didn’t know how to fix.
And the one thing we couldn’t bear to lose.