‘Want me to walk you?’
Something snaps in the region of my heart. ‘To walk me...to my place?’
‘Sure. Why not?’
I frown. It’s only a mile or so from here. ‘Where are you staying?’
/>
His lips compress in a line and for a second I see something like sadness shroud his expression. ‘I’m not asking to spend the night with you, Avery. I’ll grab a cab from yours.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’ Exactly. You can’t even open your mouth without saying the wrong thing to him. I close my eyes for a second, regrouping. When I look at him, I hope he sees genuine apology in my face. ‘I’d like it if you’d walk me home.’
He nods, but there’s tension between us now, and I hate it. My chest hurts. ‘How did your presentation go?’ I ask as we step out of the sliding glass doors onto the street. It’s late, but there are still a few people around, cars humming past.
‘It went well, thanks.’
‘I’m glad.’ Silence. Awkward, heavy, accusatory silence. ‘Jagger says you have a meeting in Amsterdam.’
‘Day after next.’ He nods, pausing beside me at a set of lights.
I consider this. ‘So you—?’
‘Yes?’ He looks down towards me, our eyes meeting, my heart pounding.
‘You came just for this?’
Something shifts in his expression, something he tries to suppress. ‘Sure.’ He jams his hands in his pockets.
‘I—’
‘How did you—?’
We speak at the same time. He lifts his brows, urging me to continue.
‘No, you go.’
‘I was going to ask what you thought of them.’ We cross the road side by side, a careful distance apart, not touching. The coldness of that, the difference to how we’ve been in the past, fills me with a deep ache.
I bite down on my lip. ‘I think they’re...nice.’
‘Nice?’ His brows shoot up.
‘Normal. Just a family, and a happy family. I think I was fighting this whole situation without really thinking about what I was doing.’
I want to expand on that, to tell him I did the same with him, but I’m so freaking nervous I can barely string two words together. I’ve never done this before and it’s not like six weeks ago—it’s not like the night he told me he loved me. I have no idea how he feels about me now—I only know that I reacted to him in a way that most people would struggle to forgive.
‘I’m glad you feel that way. They’re good people, Avery. And they care about you; they want you to be a part of their family.’
‘I know.’ I smile at him, the smile costing me because my heart is breaking apart.
‘I—’
‘They—’
He laughs now, a soft sound that makes my insides squeeze. So familiar, so different.
‘Your turn.’