Page 64 of The Spice Play

She whipped around, her eyes glistening, little beads of tears pooling in the inner corners and threatening to drip. “Stop,” she choked. “Please, just stop.”

Reluctantly, I let her go, but she didn’t flee. “I don't understand,” I rasped, resisting the urge to grab her and pull her toward me. “What did I do?”

Her lower lip wobbled, and for a second, I thought she was going to tell me. I thought, when her mouth opened and sucked in air, that she was going to explain to me exactlywhat I’d done so I could fix this, fix all of it, fix everything that had been broken for over a month. But she didn’t.

She choked back a sob and turned instead, heading straight for the steps.

She’d asked me to stop. Did she want me to stop chasing her? Or was it something else? We’d been fine up until she’d run, as far as I could tell. We’d been fine all fucking evening, just like we’d been fine until I messed everything up at the game. I didn’t understand. I didn’t get it.

“Is this what you want?” I shouted over the twenty-odd feet she’d put between us. She paused again, this time of her own choosing. “Just tell me what I did, baby. Please. Tell me what you want.”

She spun around, and the tears broke free, slipping down her cheeks as she stared at me. “I want someone who shows up because they want to support me, you fucking ass,” she croaked. “Not out of obligation or because they want tokeep their word. I want you to want to be here forme.”

“I’m here?—”

“Please just shut up and let me talk,” she sniffled, wiping her under eyes with a single finger, her lower lip wobbling. “I want someone who understands what they’ve done wrong and can apologize for it. I want someone who can ensure that when they apologize for what they’ve done, it doesn’thappenagain. I want to feel safe and confident with whoever I’m with and know that they have my back because they want to, Sebastian, not because they feel like they have to.”

I stood there at the top of the steps, her heels unsteady in the cracks of the wooden deck. I didn’t know if I was allowed to speak yet, didn’t know if she was done, and Ifought the temptation to tell her I’d been trying to apologize this entire time.

“And for what it’s worth, I’m really fucking proud of myself,” she added, her voice warbling as she readjusted her footing. “I could never tell him what I wanted or needed. I never felt able to or like it would even matter. And I’m not going back to that, Seb, I can’t. I’m not. I want you, I want this, and I know you probably don’t, but you asked what I fucking wanted, and you’re getting it laid out on a platter for you. But if you do, I can’t… I can’t deal withthis.”

My chest heaved. “Of course I want you, Nelly,” I rasped, and I waited, waited for a sign from her that I needed to shut up and wait my turn, but when it didn’t come, I took the steps two at a time. “I want you. Jesus fucking Christ, I want you.”

I crossed the deck toward her, half expecting her to run again. But she didn’t.

“All I’ve been trying to do is apologize to you, baby, but you — you wouldn’t let me that night, and I assumed you didn’t want to hear it. But I’m sorry. I’m so, so fucking sorry for that. It shouldn’t have happened, and for what it’s worth, I knew that as soon as it happened. I was sick to my stomach the whole time after you left the game, and all I wanted to do was get home, apologize, make it up to you, and promise it would never happen again. And itwon’t.”

She choked out a noise that sounded halfway between a sob and a whimper, and I took her face in my hands, brought myself closer, broughthercloser.

“I’ve just been trying to get that across in whatever way I can. The car, the flowers, the space I was trying to give you. I didn’t know what you needed. I was guessing,” I rasped, tilting her head back to lift her gaze to mine. Little tears streaked down, and I swiped them away, every bit ofher feeling so fucking fragile beneath me. “That’s part of why I’mhere. I’m not just trying to keep my fucking word, baby, I’m here because I know how awful it can be with exes, especially withhim, and it broke my goddamn heart to think of you doing this alone. I’m here for you. And I’m here to apologize. I just didn’t want to push you away.”

She sucked in a breath through her little sobs, her hands fisting the sides of my suit jacket. “I didn’t… I didn’t realize, I’m sorry. I thought you were fine letting me go.”

“No,” I swallowed. “I wasn’t. I’ve been a fucking wreck.”

I closed the distance before she could try to apologize for something she didn’t need to again, pressing my lips to hers for the first time in over a month, and I felt like I could breathe again, felt like I couldunderstandagain, felt like I could focus again. She dug her fingers into my side, her lips parting, the saltiness of her tears mixing with the subtle vanilla of her lip gloss, and I never wanted to leave. I never wanted to let go.

“I want you,” I said again, breaking from the kiss just long enough to get the words out before taking her again, and again, and again. “I’ll say it a million goddamn times if you want me to. Just come back. Please.”

I lifted my lips from hers, keeping my head close and my eyes focused on her, only her, onlyher. I swiped the last of her tears away, careful not to mess up her makeup. “Okay,” she breathed. “But you have to be, like, really fucking nice to me tonight 'cause I’m a bit of an emotional wreck with all this.”

I cracked a laugh and kissed her again, just briefly. “You have no idea how nice I can be,” I chuckled, tucking her hair behind her ears and cupping her jaw with both hands. “I gotus a room at the hotel around the corner. The one on the invite.”

Warmth spread across her cheeks as a genuine smile took over. “That was presumptuous.”

I pressed a kiss to her cheekbone. “I would have slept in it alone if this hadn’t worked out,” I clarified. “I just would have been really,reallylonely.”

Chapter 27

Nelly

Ijusthadto go and cry and ruin my goddamn makeup.

Even though I’d gotten it all off my chest, even though I felt a million pounds lighter and we’d talked it out, I still looked like a wreck. We’d both done our best to keep my mascara from getting everywhere, and I’d worn my strongest waterproof just in case I hadn’t been able to hold it together tonight forotherreasons, but it just flaked instead, covering my streaked foundation with little flecks of black.

“We could just go,” I offered, clutching my phone in my hand as I tried to use the front camera to clean myself up. But in the low light of the porch, I could barely see what I was doing, and I certainly couldn’t reapply my makeup here.

“Not a chance. I don’t want to give them the slightest chance of thinking you couldn’t handle it and had to leave early,” Seb said. He hooked his thumb and finger on my chin and turned me to face him, tilting my face back and forth to inspect it. “Did you bring makeup?”

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