Page 77 of Illicit Illustration

“Yeah, um, I know somewhere quiet we can go.” Taking his hand, I pulled him behind me as I moved toward the back hallway. Hudson was too busy behind the bar to mind me using his office.

Charley watched with a strangely neutral expression as I towed Seven behind me, but the whispers that followed us as people noticed the giant 7 hanging from his neck had my nerves building.

Thankfully, Hudson’s door was unlocked as I twisted the knob, gesturing for him to follow me inside the quiet office.

A sense of déjà vu hit me as I took a seat in my brother’s chair behind the desk and gestured for him to sit in the one across from it. Maybe it’d make it easier for me to say what I needed to say if he was separated from me by a cluttered piece of furniture.

“Okay, so I know you wanted to talk, but I feel like I need to go first so you aren’t wasting your time,” I started, and he leaned back in the chair, nodding once in concession.

Even without being able to see his face, I was kind of kicking myself that I needed to end this. He was tall, with strong looking broad shoulders, wearing a blue dress shirt covered by a leather jacket. Dark denim clung to his legs and disappeared into a pair ofworn, brown leather riding boots. It was weird to know that I had fond feelings for him without ever seeing his face, but I also knew those feelings weren’t enough to stop what needed to come next.

“When we talked at the event, I honestly didn’t think you were being serious. I’d never had an instant connection with someone like that. And I didn’t expect to flirt with you like we did, because normally I am an absolute hot mess around people, much less around men whose voices made me feel the things that yours did.”

To his credit, he just sat there waiting, not trying to interrupt me, and weirdly, also not removing his helmet. But maybe that would just make this easier. Being distracted by his face might make my resolve waver or send me into a tangent that would just make all this more confusing.

“And don’t get me wrong, I looked forward to every one of your messages. I felt like you were someone who understood me and would let me express myself without judgment, which is rare in my life.” I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who treated me like that outside of my immediate family.

“I sense a but coming,” he said, leaning forward to brace his forearms on his thighs.

“Yeah. There’s a but,” I whispered before I took a deep breath. “Butit wouldn’t be fair of me to give you a false sense of hope. Because while the timing was epically shitty, I kind of have really strong feelings for someone else. And I don’t know if he’s going to break my heart, or if it’s a terrible idea to pursue something more with him, but…”

It was harder than I thought it’d be to admit this, especially to a stranger that might have feelings for me. “But he is someone I’ve liked for a long time, and while my feelings used to be a girlish crush, they’ve turned into something I don’t think I can deny any longer. And to be completely honest, I don’t want to.”

Seven sat there silently, one of his legs bouncing nervously.

“Can you maybe say something now? I know we barely know each other, and this is probably not as big of a deal to you as it is to me…”

He sat upright, his hands framing the side of the helmet. He hesitated, and I could hear him exhale a loud sigh before he started pulling upward. His face was covered by a black balaclava, but as his eyes came into view—even closed—a surprised gasp escaped my lips.

“But…”

“I’m sorry, kitten,” Reid’s deep voice was muffled by the fabric covering it, but it was like a punch directly to the gut.

“How? I mean, what… Oh my God.”

My pulse pounded as he reached up to drag the fabric covering off his head. His hair was sweaty and sticking up, his cheeks pink from being inside the helmet for so long, but I’d never seen him look so handsome…yet devastated at the same time.

He opened his mouth, but I held up a hand between us, trying to blink away the tears that had pooled as I sat there and stared at him. I wanted to shout at him, to scream and throw things from my brother’s desk at his face, to shock and injure him as much as I was feeling right now.

But only one sentence managed to escape my mouth.

“How…how could you?”

And then I was on my feet, running toward the bathroom across the hallway to escape fromhim, and this time he really could fucking keep the penis—and the jackass attached to it—because I’d apparently fallen for the biggest fucking dick on the planet.

Reid

As Hazel disappeared fromview, the sounds of the bathroom door slamming shut, and the lock being flipped, were like shots directly to my heart. IknewI had fucked this up, but the sight of unshed tears and so much disdain in her eyes was almost more than I could handle.

Everyone had begged me not to fuck this up, but I still had. Because instead of talking to her, I’d greedily sucked up as much of her time—both as Seven and Reid—as I could get. I’d pursued her. I’d messaged and charmed her. I’d pushed my way into her business and forced myself into this harebrained idea to help her get reference photos for her commissions.

She had every right to be upset. She had every right to be mad at me for how I’d handled this. Or not handled this, because I’d had more than one opening to confess to her what I’d done.

But I didn’t. Because deep down, I was afraid that she wouldn’t love me. And now I’d pretty much guaranteed she never would.

Maybe it was better that she’d only confessed to having strong feelings for me. Maybe that would make it easier to convince myself I hadn’t meant as much to her as she’d meant to me. Because I knew I would be in a ball crying on the floor if she’d shared the fact that she loved me with another man before she told me.

But it didn’t fucking matter now, because she never would. And the longer I waited, staring at that damn bathroom door, the more it set in that she wanted absolutely nothing to fucking do with me.

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