Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

My jaw dropped, his uncharacteristic vulgarity catching me off guard. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Why do you want to make this harder?”

“Because you need to hear this. Maybe back then you thought—so what, a kiss is just a kiss. Why not? But it wasn’t, not to me. You think it was easy for me, turning down your ripe fucking strawberry lips?”

My face heated. I wanted to melt into a puddle, half with embarrassment over his words, half because my knees were weakening with need the more his control slipped. “What’s your point?” I asked. “What good is it to rehash this?”

“You think I wasn’t sure, or I didn’t want to, or that she was more important to me than you but none of that is true. Here’s the truth.”

At that inopportune moment, a passing ambulance forced him to go quiet. With its shrill wail, red and blue lights flashing over Manning’s face, his words hanging in the air, my heart rate kicked up. What was Manning trying to tell me? What could he possibly say?

Once the street had stilled again, he said, “I knew the second I put my lips on yours, I’d be in-fucking-capable of letting you go. That was why I could never do it before. Those nights we had . . . in the truck, on the lake, and the kitchen counter . . . once I crossed the line, there was no turning back for me. I could never just wake up the next morning and not have you as mine.”

My heart pounded so loudly now, I was sure the entire city could hear it. These were words I’d begged for, cried for, betrayed my sister for, and he was finally giving them to me. Of course he was right that one kiss would change everything, but back then, I’d wanted that at any cost—to be his through and through.

He stared me down, challenging me to back off or run or make my own confessions. I’d done enough talking, though. It was his turn to stand there, wait for a response, and be humiliated.

Slowly, he shook his head. “I thought you deserved a better future than I could give you. I never kissed you because I wasn’t allowed to have you, and I would’ve had no choice but to take you anyway.”

It didn’t excuse anything he’d done, and it didn’t lessen the pain of those moments, but I knew exactly what he meant. Manning was mine, I knew it in my gut. I always had. “So she got it all instead,” I said.

“If it hadn’t been her, it would’ve been someone else. I would’ve worked my way through a line of women trying to forget you. I married her because I thought I was doing the right thing for all of us. And I thought she was who I deserved.”

“And now?” I asked breathlessly.

He came closer, until he stood over me, blocking out the moon, the passersby, the skyscrapers that boxed us in. “I worked so hard to keep you innocent,” he said quietly. “You’re no longer a kid, though. I always struggled to resist you, but I can’t anymore. I don’t want to.”

Panic rose up my chest. I’d known Manning could get under my skin in a matter of seconds, but I didn’t think he’d ever try. He’d always been so careful, but tonight, it was as if something inside him had flipped. “You can’t say those things to me,” I accused. “Back then, I would’ve given anything to hear them. Back then, I thought I was invincible. Now I know better. I’ve seen the damage you can do.”

“I don’t want to do damage. You should know it’s been impossibly hard for me, too.”

“For you?” I blinked rapidly. “Are you kidding?”

“Just because I put us in this situation doesn’t mean I don’t suffer. You don’t see how I’ve struggled each day.”

“Were you the one who had to watch the love of your life marry someone else?”

“No, and it would’ve killed me, Lake.” He moved in on me, and I retreated to the curb until my back hit the side of a taxi. “Seeing you and Corbin together, knowing he’s had all your firsts when I . . . when I could’ve been the one . . .” His voice wavered with emotion. “I get it.”

“You don’t get it,” I said through my teeth. “Not even close. She got everything I’ll never have. Not only the firsts, but she’ll get the lasts, too, and everything in between. Everything else, she gets.”

Tears built at the base of my throat. I tried to duck away so he wouldn’t see how he affected me, but he put his hands on the roof of the cab, caging me in. “I can’t change that. It’s done. It’s in the past.” He dropped his eyes to my lips and my panic grew bigger. I was losing control of this situation. “This morning,” he said, “if you had let me, I would’ve kissed you.”