Page 32 of Fall Into Me

It was the opposite. It was something I had made myself learn how to live without, and he waltzed right into my life like it hadn’t been one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do.

“Get your hands off me.” My jaw was clenched so tight it was painful. I focused on that as much as I could instead of how the woodsy scent that had always belonged to Fane still clung to him.

Subtle but all-consuming.

Like he’d walked by something, and it clung to his shirt. His skin and hair. It was mixed so perfectly with something else that I had only ever been able to identify as purely Fane.

“Not until you sit your ass down and listen to what I have to say.”

I widened my eyes as if to say,The floor is yours, buddy.

With his face set into a scowl that was anything but inviting, he walked me back three steps until the back of my legs hit an empty milk crate, and I was forced to sit.

“When we’re in public, there will be no chance anyone will be able to question that you’re mine.”

I crossed my arms and gave him a withering look of my own.

If I didn’t latch onto something to mix in with that thread of anger I was holding onto for dear life since he’d appeared out of the blue, I might start thinking about how I’d woken up with the smell of him lingering on my clothes and that it took everything in me not to let my hands dip in between my legs when I showered.

Which had also been wet.Because of him.

“That means,” he continued, “we’re going to act like a couple.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, Captain Obvious.” He honestly looked like he wanted to bend me over his knee and teach me a lesson and,oh my god, I wasnotgoing to think about that.

Ew.Ew.

“I’m going to touch you, Calista.”

I literallyjumpedfrom hearing his words that my ass came off the milk carton. “I beg your pardon?”

“When we’re in public.” He let out an aggravated sigh through his nose.

I rolled my eyes. “God, Fane. I know what it’s like to be in a relationship with someone and what that entails.” I threw my hands up and resisted the urge to stand up.

Fane’s eyes seemed to darken a little at that, and he looked so imposing from where he stood above me. He crossed his arms and took a small step back from me, and it was like visibly seeing him change right before my eyes and morph into another version I didn’t recognize of the man I used to know better than myself.

“Then you’ll know that means you can’t look at me like you wish I wasn’t there. You can’t freeze up like a fucking corpse when you stand next to me. When I kiss you–”

“Kiss me?”My legs catapulted me up from my sitting position so fast I was certain I got at least a foot of air before I came crashing right back down to the ground. “Youwon’tbe kissing me.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Why?”My hands balled into fists.

You’re an adult, don’t punch him. You’re an adult, donotpunch him.

“Because, Calista.” He took another deep breath, and I saw the way his head twitched like he wanted to crack it. When he spoke again, it was slow, deliberately sounding out every word. “Boyfriends,” he gestured to himself, “do that with their girlfriends.” He gestured to me.

Girlfriends.Plural.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that Fane would have been dating in the last two years. In my effort to eradicate him completely from every part of my life, I had also decided to completely refuse to think about what his being with someone else would look like. Feel like.

Instead, it was perfect fodder for why losing him was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me. He and hisgirlfriendscould all be very happy somewhere far away from my town.

“Fakegirlfriend,” I hissed, ignoring all the things hearing him say those words did to my heart and hating him all themore for making me feel them all over again when he was the reason that nothing about it worked right anymore. “And only until I figure out a way to end it that won’t make my parents suspicious.”

This time, Fane rolled his eyes. It sucked that he knew them as well as he did because we both knew that any reason I gave them wouldn’t be enough.

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