“Why can’t I be on his side?” I whisper, clutching the paper cup in my hands.
Crap. I wish I knew more about Rafe’s past. I try to imagine where he’s heading now. Home? To his friends at Damage Control? Does he have someone to talk to?
I think he’s already locked up, inside, and it makes me so damn sad it’s all I can do not to break down and cry.
***
Tuesday arrives with no sign of life from Raylin, the rent is five days away, and my boss keeps dropping hints about firing me, twisting my stomach into knots.
Plus I have a date with Greg for a drink—because yesterday I canceled on impulse and don’t have the heart to cancel for a third time in a row—and Rafe is here.
Usual place. Usual attitude. Acting as if he didn’t run out of the other coffee shop yesterday. As if absolutely nothing’s out of the ordinary. As if it’s normal for him to come where I work, instead of hanging out with his friends.
I honestly don’t understand why he keeps returning. What he wants from me.
We have to talk. I have to talk to him, figure out what is going on, and if he gets up to leave, then that’s it, I quit. I’ll ignore him just like he ignores me, and pretend it’s not tearing me apart, until it doesn’t.
Until he stops coming to the coffee shop, or until I find another job. Anything to stop this uncertainty and misery.
I tighten my ponytail until my head hurts, lick my lips, suck in a deep breath, and head to Rafe’s table. His wide shoulders are hunched, his hands flat on the table top. His golden hair is messy, curling at his temples and the vulnerable pale stretch of his neck.
I swallow past a knot in my throat and approach, preparing the words I will say—ask how he is, what he’s doing here, where his friends are—
—only to be stopped by a voice calling my name, a male voice I recognize a split second later.
A split second too late, as it turns out.
“Megan!” Greg is advancing toward me. A cute, chestnut-haired boy with an easy smile. Somehow I forgot how tall and rail-thin he is, all gangly arms and legs. Memory is a funny thing.
Or else I never cared before. Never compared him to the six-foot-something, broad-shouldered frame of Rafe. Never compared his wide baby blues to narrow golden eyes, or his soft-featured face to a certain angular, hard-jawed one.
Greg is heading right at me, and before I snap out of my stupor, he grabs my hand and leans in to kiss me. As if nothing happened—as if we haven’t been going our separate ways for months now.
At least I manage to turn my head in the last possible moment, so that his lips brush my cheek instead of my mouth.
“What are you doing?” I jerk my hand out of his sweaty, weak grip. “Slow down, will you?”
“Sure.” He shrugs, smiles. “Let’s take it slow.”
Easy as that. An easy shrug, an easy smile, an easy statement. I watch him curiously, as if seeing him for the first time. Why not be with Greg, indeed? It’d be so easy.
Too easy.
The screech of a chair being shoved backward breaks through my thoughts. Rafe straightens, his brows drawn together. His gaze is hard as steel, cutting through me. His hands clench and unclench at his sides, and I think he’s going to tell me something.
But he doesn’t. He throws some money on the table for his coffee and brushes by me, his smoky scent trailing behind him, a ghost of his presence.
I stare at him go, numb.
Nothing’s easy about Rafe. Nothing’s clear. Smoke and mirrors. I wanted him to stay away, since he obviously doesn’t want me to be near him, and yet... Yet now he’s leaving, I feel cold. I rub my arms, fighting the sudden chill.
“Listen... maybe we could meet some other day,” I tell Greg. My heart is pounding in my ears, and my eyes feel hot.
“Okay.” Greg’s smile fades. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Absolutely. I mean, my boss is glaring at me again, and again he got to see the whole show. And, dammit, I care even more about the fact that Rafe saw Greg kiss me than my boss, and how screwed up is that?