Page 60 of Forged By Sacrifice

“Of course, you’d think that,” Mac was saying.

They both stopped when they saw me, but Mac seemed to take me in for longer, as if he was trying to assess if I’d changed from the last time I’d seen him.

“We didn’t think you were home,” Dani said.

I waved my phone. “I was just about to text you.”

“Congrats on your first day! How was it?” Dani asked as Mac started to unload the bags, the smell of garlic and basil filling the apartment and making my stomach growl loudly.

“It was really good, but I didn’t get a chance to eat,” I answered over another loud grumble from my intestines.

“We can tell.” Mac grinned, and my stomach flipped again but for a different reason. Because Mac’s smile was gorgeous, and every time I thought I’d gotten used to it, I was proven wrong.

I pulled out plates from the cupboard, and we all dished up, sitting at the counter while I talked about my day, and they talked about theirs. It felt like, maybe, Mac and I were moving closer to the friendship that I was hoping we’d find.

We were almost done when Dani’s phone buzzed. She looked down at the text before jumping off the barstool and heading down the hall.

“Who is he, Dani?” Mac tossed at her.

She just waved the phone at him and kept going.

He turned back to me.

“I’m glad you had a good first day,” he said.

I nodded, picking up the plates, and he joined me. We cleaned the kitchen in silence. We both reached for the kitchen towel at the same moment, our hands tangling and then stilling. I pulled my hands away, crossed my arms over my chest, and swallowed. I wanted to have this talk. I wanted to move on, or move out, or just do something instead of hiding.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” I said.

“Not so much avoiding as giving us some space,” he said, but he moved closer to me as he said it, leaning on the counter next to me so our arms were almost touching.

“This is space,” I teased, but he didn’t smile in return. Instead, his eyes seemed to bore into mine, and I found my courage and resolve melting beneath the heat of his stare.

“Will you be honest if I ask you something?” he asked quietly.

That made me raise my chin in irritation. “I’m always honest.”

“Is it just me, or is this,” he waved a finger between us, “different for you, too?”

His words made me wish I hadn’t said I was always honest. Because I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him how he made me feel. “Different how?” I asked, stalling.

His hand went to my hair, twirling fingers into my ponytail, tugging at the white stripe that had been there since that night my dad was arrested. He was too close for mere friends. For the mere roommates that I’d resolved we had to be.

“Different, as in, never had moments like these before. As in, I’m not sure I can stop touching you now that I’ve started. Different, as in, I feel like the pieces of us might just fit together better than any person has ever fit with me before.”

The words made my heart soar and stop all at the same time, aches of regret filling me. “Except we don’t, Mac. Not at all,” I told him, being as truthful as he’d asked me to be.

“Forget everything about your family and my political goals. If we hadn’t told each other any of that… If we’d just had that one incredible kiss and were here now, would you want me to take you out on a date? Would you be asking me, this very second, to kiss you again?”

He wanted to act like none of it existed. To pretend like we didn’t know all the things about each other that would never work. And I wasn’t sure if that hurt more or less than him not wanting to be with me at all, because I deserved to be with someone who chose me in spite of my family, not regardless of them.

“But I can’t do that,” I told him. “We have told each other those things. It’s all twined together. Our families, our lives, and what we want for our futures. We barely know each other, but what we know is enough to know that our lives don’t fit. Even in the short term.”

I pulled my ponytail from his hands, smoothing it with my own.

“You’re right that we barely know each other,” he said. “You’re right that, even in the short term, we seem like jagged edges instead of smooth curves. But all I know is that when I kissed you, I felt forever. Forever in one kiss.”

I moved away from him and toward the loft because, suddenly, I wasn’t ready for this conversation at all. I hadn’t expected it to turn on me in this way. He’d taken everything I thought I was going to say and swallowed it up in talks of forever. And I was surprised and unprepared for the longing and bitterness that filled me at his words. I may have never longed for a happily ever after before, but I knew, if it wasn’t for my family, I would have been caving. Giving in to him and the sweetest words that anyone had ever spoken to me…forever in a kiss. But I denied it all, instead. I spoke from the bitterness instead of the longing. “I don’t want forever with you, Mac.”

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