Page 49 of Break Your Fall

“He’s about to wear out the fucking floor. He stomps through the kitchen to get my attention, and when I won’t give it to him, he stomps back to the guest room.” There’s frustration in his tone but amusement on his face.

I finish off my bagel to cover my slight laugh. Julian’s having too much fun, not taking Bratty Banks as seriously as he wants him to, which causes me to laugh again.

“Make up already,” I say after I swallow the food. “People have real problems and yours and his isn’t one.”

Julian’s mouth closes in a look of empathy as Camille’s voice echoes in my head.You might wanna talk to him.“How are those going?”

“Still going.”

“At least you know the truth,” he says. “And now you can deal with it. It’s better to have everything out in the open.”

“Everything?” I challenge with a face that says,How’s that going for you?

“Maybe not everything, but everything.” He shakes his head, then gives me the same look. “What exactly happened when you told Reyna yours?”

We didn’t talk full details that night. I recall Reyna’s reaction to my declaration, and despite her horrified stare that makes me feel pummeled as it looms inside my head, I find myself smiling. “She shoved me.”

Julian stares off with a smile of his own, his chest rocking on a silent laugh. “Yeah, I’m familiar with her shoving.” His voice carries both a fondness and a regret. “I’m sorry, man,” he says as his eyes reconnect with mine. It’s an apology for me, for her, for everything.

“Good,” I say with a sigh. “Now prove it. Toher.”

Julian sighs back. “Iwantto—”

My incredulous laugh cuts him off. “Yeah. You alwayswantto.”

Reyna bounces through the door on the heels of my words, stopping dead in her tracks at the sight of Julian.

Now I’m thinking,I need a shirt.

And with one trailing look over the dress she’s wearing today,Oh, fuck me.

Reyna

My eyes connect with Julian’s, and, for the first time since the last time, they hold, captured and stuck at the same time, his touch, his laughter, his words bouncing between us as they bounced off the walls of my bedroom, pushing me to destroy.

Memories we shouldn’t have, that were never meant to be ours.

And the ones that were.

Those hurt the most. Memories that almost feel like they belong to somebody else, but the pain is still mine.

Julian finally breaks away, casting a look at Tommy. He chuckles at what he sees, then looks back at me. “I was leaving,” he lies.

I take a step to the side as he approaches, but he stops once he’s close to me. “I’m sorry, Reyna,” he says, low. The way he’s been acting doesn’t line up.

“I can tell,” I say, and he rears back at the call out, nodding as he holds my stare a second longer before I hear his shoes shuffling through the grass behind me.

Tommy hasn’t said anything, and when I look at him, I see his gaze lowered and fixed to my dress. It’s a black lace up with bats and crescent moons decorating the green skirt. The trail of his eyes along my body stunts my breathing. I could come completely undone if he keeps looking at me this way—intimate and uncharted, something he knows but has yet to explore. I could take off my dress, make my skin a map for his hands.

“Do you like my dress, Tommy?” I recognize the flirtation in my voice that I wouldn’t have given much thought to before. He recognizes it, too, as his eyes spring up to mine.

“I never want summer to end.” His voice is wanting, and I flush, blink, my fingers running along the lace ups over my stomach.

“You said that out loud.”

Tommy breathes an embarrassed laugh and nods. “I’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

I step closer. “It doesn’t have to endinside. I can wear this anytime you want.”

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