Page 3 of Silent Cravings

He wasn’t listening, too busy lifting a hand to get Evan’s attention. “Hey! Evan!”

“Not necessary,” I warned, though it was too late.

Dammit, I should have left before now.

It’s not like anybody would have missed me except maybe Aria, but then she was busy canoodling with our stepbrother and boyfriend, so she probably wouldn’t notice I was gone.

Shit, I had drank too much. Whenever I started getting depressed and dark, that was my red flag.

Evan had heard him and was now coming our way, weaving in and out of clusters of guests. Why did he have to look so good?

When we were kids, he was cute, even hot. Soulful dark eyes, a jaw so sharp it could etch glass, not to mention the way he was blessed with a naturally tall, slim body that put him half a head taller than most people in any room he entered. In other words, he garnered attention. My attention, to be exact.

Ten years had taken him from a cute kid to an incredibly sexy, intriguing man. Sure, he could be a pain in the ass with his irreverent sense of humor and the fact he sometimes forgot how to censor himself, but I knew where that came from. I knew him better than our friends thought I did.

“You don’t look so good,” he told me, looking me up and down while running a hand through the wild, dark hair he always wore just long enough to curl around his earlobes and the nape of his neck. “Are you feeling all right?”

He was trying too hard to pretend he didn’t know what I was going through. If it hadn’t been for the look we exchanged right after the announcement, I might have believed him. I mean, he had no trouble moving on after us. After what happened. I doubted there was a single day he looked back on the time and wondered what life would look like today if things had turned out differently.

“Can you see her home?” Noah asked as if I wasn’t standing right next to him.

“It’s fine. I’ll get an Uber,” I insisted.

It was better to ignore Evan. I had worked so damn hard to put everything behind me, to forget. Now, here I was witheverything thrown in my face all over again. I couldn’t look at him. It was too hard.

“I can at least ride with you,” he offered. “There isn’t much of anything interesting going on here anyway.” He looked around, smirking. I didn’t have to ask what he meant by that. A party always led to him getting his dick wet.

“Wouldn’t want to stick around to support your friends,” I muttered. I would have guessed he didn’t hear me, but the clench of a muscle in his jaw told me otherwise.

“Great. Thanks.” Noah gave my shoulder another awkward pat. It was obvious he was proud of himself for taking care of me. Such a hero.

None of this was his fault. I had to remind myself of that as I ducked into Rose’s bedroom closet after fighting my way through the guests. Being a lifelong friend offered certain privileges, and I took advantage of the brief moment of quiet, breathing slowly and letting my muscles loosen. I considered leaving a note on the nightstand to explain why I left early but decided against it. What was I supposed to say anyway?It’s too damn hard to be here right now, so I’m running away.Sure, that would work. I rolled my eyes at myself on my way out of the room, heading straight for the front door in hopes of escaping before Evan could find me. Of all people to be holed up in a car next to, he was the furthest down on my list.

Luck was not in my favor. There he was, waiting for me, offering a tight little grin before opening the front door and ushering me through. Well, this didn’t have to be terrible. It was only a ten-minute ride to my apartment in Hudson Yards. We didn’t even have to speak.

I should’ve known better.

“Did you have dinner tonight?” he asked, seemingly out of nowhere, on the way down to the lobby. The air in theelevator car felt too thick, too challenging to pull into my lungs. And he wanted me to think about when I last ate?

“I had a salad,” I told him after thinking about it.

“When?”

“I don’t know. Three, maybe? I had a busy day.”

“That’s a late lunch. Not dinner,” he grumbled. “No wonder the booze hit you so hard.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I whispered once the doors opened to the lobby. It was a relief to get out of the elevator and put a little space between us while checking the app to see if the car was getting closer. “The driver’s just rounding the corner now,” I told him, glad for the excuse to hurry out of the building. The cool, wet air hit my face once I reached the sidewalk, remnants of the day’s rain. The light mist offered me a moment to breathe, a complete contrast to the suffocating warmth shared in the elevator.

He opened the door for me when the Range Rover pulled up in front of the building but said nothing until we were on our way. “It’s early,” he offered. “We could stop off someplace, grab something to eat. I’m starved.”

Why couldn’t he leave me alone? That was all I wanted, more than anything in the world. To be alone. To let the mask drop, crawl into bed, and maybe spend all of Sunday there wallowing.

When I didn’t say anything because I didn’t trust myself to, he continued, “Is that Chinese place on the corner still good? I remember I loved their orange chicken.”

My molars ground hard before I grunted. “Yeah, they’re good.”

“I’ll place an order now.” He was already on the phone, opening an app and adding items to a cart. “What would you like?”

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