Page 114 of Rinkmates

I run after her. “Lia, please wait.Please.”

She doesn’t.

So I sprint. “Liora!”

She turns around, there are several feet between us, but I see that her jaw is so tight. That her eyes flash with anger. The kind I never want to see again. “What, Riley? What?”

“I asked you to wait!”

“Oh, and when you ask, I should do it just like your little dog? Surely not!”

“No, I want to talk to you!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, what do you want then?”

I scoff. “What I want?”

“Yes! What you want! You started kissing me, started treating me as if there’s more to us, as if there’s—”

“Real feelings? Even though the contract forbids it?” I take a step closer, my heart pounding.

Her blonde hair whips in the wind as she looks at me as if I have a knife ready to stab her. “Yes, Liora. Because I do have real feelings for you.”

She laughs, but it’s bitter. “Feelings?” she yells. “You’re really going to stand there and say that now? You don’t even know what you’re getting into!”

“Yes, because you won’t let me in,” I yell back, my voice cracking. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. And I know it’s not part of the plan, not part of the contract we signed, but it’s real. And it’s ruining me.”

“It was fake,” she says as if daring me to say the truth.

“It wasn’t,” I insist. “It was real. Every moment, every touch, every kiss. It was real all along.”

She takes a step back, crossing her arms over her chest, as if to shield herself from my words. “But friends don’t catch feelings.”

I scoff. “I’m sorry I said that, okay? We’re not friends. At least I don’t want you to bejustmy friend. I fell for you, I fell so hard, and I’m still falling.”

There. I said it.

I practically ripped out my heart and gave it to her.

She doesn’t say anything and I’m getting anxious.

I add, stepping closer. “I may be an idiot because this is supposed to be fake, but I had feelings the minute youwalked into my apartment. I spent all my fucking teenage years obsessing over you, and you turned out to be the most funny, cute, smart, determined, focused, talented, and thoughtful human being I’ve ever met. I wanted to hate you. And I did, but only because I was terrified—terrified that if I let myself love you, you wouldn’t love me back.”

A single tear runs down her rosy cheek. “It’s not that easy—”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, I won’t let you push me away. We can figure this out. We can find a way. Because I know it was real for you too. You don’t have to say it. I felt it.”

She rakes both hands through her long hair, her mouth opens but no sound comes out. I know if I go now, she wouldn’t come back to me. She’d leave me. But I say it anyway, “Let me help you.”

“No one can help me.” Her words are sharp, but her voice cracks and her breath hitches.

I close the distance between us, captivated by the moonlight casting a soft glow on her beautiful face. Her eyes, swollen and rimmed with red, meet mine as tears run down her cheeks. I kneel softly, letting my hands slide from her shoulders to her hips as I lower myself onto the sand, feeling it yield beneath my knees. “I’m not leaving, Liora.”

Her voice drops to a whisper. “You say this now.” The tiny crack in her voice makes my stomach clench.

“I will always say this.”

She shakes her head.

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