Page 119 of Our Hearts Knew Better

Levi backs up, lifting his feet from stepping on my assault weapons, some of the books spread open, pages bent against the floor, and leans back against the door, his stare toward the roof. “He made it sound that way,” he sighs out, knowing, the smallest scoff like it’snotthat way.

“What way was it?” I press, before blurting, “And could you not be so calm right now?” My insides match the storm outside, still simmering within me as it floods my voice, my body vibrating.

“I’m not calm, Summer,” he says, and I hear the strain coming through his voice, then I see the tension coiled through his arms. His gaze reconnects with mine, with that same wildness, tamed while he talks to me, because he has to.

He better.

“He never told you why he and Nadia broke up…” It’s a half question, and I feel my back meet the edges of the shelves as I shake my head.Nadia?

“He never wanted to really talk about her.”

Levi nods, then flicks his brows with a quick widening of his lids, like he doesn’t blame Adam, and there was a reason for it.

“When you met us, we were…at the first low point in our friendship,” he starts. “He was crazy about Nadia. She hung out with both of us…” he trails off, in his thoughts, and I meet him there, in a sensed conclusion about the three of them before he confirms it with a big breath. “One day she told Adam she was getting feelings for me, and it caused problems, and she broke it off thinking she’d swap him for me.”

My eyes drift to the floor with a squeeze of guilt in my stomach for how I’ve done the same in my head. But it’s only a moment before I’m shifting my focus back, processing where Levi is going, a reminder that Nadia and I are not the same. We didn’t start this from the same place.

“Then I dropped in,” I add low, pushing Levi to give me more, all the rest, in his quiet.

Levi slips his hands into the pockets of his shorts, and my jaw clenches at the motion. “It’s like you landed in my lap that night. And I knew you were meant to be mine,” he says, with an awe that unhinges me in all ways.

I remember how he was, his paused, uncertain stare, before. . .

“Then the phone rang,” I add next, half to myself, picking up pieces and clicking them in.

“Adam was the one going through a broken heart,” he continues, now taking me back to the question I pinned on him that night. “And it was my job to make him feel better, because it was my fault his girlfriend left him.” He says this like Adam pointed the finger, but Levi believed the blame too. “He thoughtyouwere my way of making that up to him, and you know how Adam is. He sets his sights on something, it’s his.”

“I’m not a thing,” comes out of my mouth as a snap.

“You’re something he wanted and he wouldn’t have talked to me again if I pursued you. So I tried to stay away from you.”

I swallow hard before stating the obvious as a kind of retribution for the unfair place he’s taking us. “We couldn’t.”

At the same time I say this, he gives a slow, acknowledging shake of his head, his eyes flashing like he’s seeing our memories, too, our kiss, how he pursued me, anyway.

“When he came back, he gave me an ultimatum. Our friendship or you.”

My eyes squeeze shut on a deflating breath, the roaring inside me, once again, matching the roaring outside.

“He really liked you, Summer,” Levi says, snapping my eyes open, the first pitch of pleading in his voice. “If he didn’t, I wouldn’t have—”

“Handed me over?” My teeth barely move with my words as I push out my own pleas. “You both took my choice away.” My tone is edged with a promise to myself I’m keeping now.No one is doing that again.“You knew how much having a choice meant to me.”

Levi straightens against the door, a shift to face me fully. “I knew Adam since we were kids,” he stresses, not quite as a defense but as a fact. “I knew you for a summer, and that was our first big obstacle, and I was seventeen,” he emphasizes. “And I didn’t know how to keep my best friend and my girl.” The steadfast claim staggers my already dragged inhales. “I didn’t know how to get out of the position I was in. I couldn’t fix it. I had to choose.”

He starts toward me, a step for a sentence, for a release, as I did as I was throwing the books, his feet careful in moving around them.

My heart races with abandon as he moves in closer and closer to me.

“And it was the hardest thing I’d done. I didn’t have feelings for Nadia—ever—but I had feelings for you…”

There’s a calmness back in his tone, but his still wild gaze, full of intention with each determined step, presses the edges of the shelves more into my spine. I don’t want to back away—I’m not trying to—but it’smeabout to be knocked straight over.

“So I knew things would only get messier. I didn’t want to lose my best friend,” he says, like a regret. Like he is. Like he has. My heart races more, impossibly fast. “I already almost did over something else I couldn’t control. But now—”

“But now,” I say, a reflexive, breathy cut in repeat at the suddenness of his proximity, his hands sliding onto a shelf, boxing me in, his air now my air.

His gaze burns a hole everywhere it lands on my skin, but with less of the burn and more of his warmth.

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