Page 90 of Undeniably Enemies

“Right.” I swallow and try not to shift or let her see my disappointment. “I already know this, Wren. We talked about that before.”

“Yes, but then last night happened.”

“It did.”

And I don’t—and won’t—regret it.

“I don’t want you to text me again, and I won’t text you. I don’t want to think about you that way, and I don’t want toknow you’re thinking about me like that either. I’m not saying we hate each other again, but I think being civil and distant is the best way to do this with us.”

She’s right. It’s the same dance we keep doing. We have these moments, these intense, crazy, all-consuming moments, and then we have to remind each other that we can’t have them and force ourselves to take a step back. But this isn’t just a step back. This is her closing the door once and for all.

I gulp, feeling like I’m being pulverized. Last night was… everything. Just as last weekend was.

Without caring, I lean in and kiss her. Because she’s telling me it’s the last time, and I can’t go the rest of my life without kissing her again. My hand slides up her face and into her hair, and I hold her against me, parting her lips and slipping my tongue into her mouth. I kiss her and kiss her and never want to stop. I want to kiss her always, and who cares about being chief when Wren’s kisses feel like this?

Like my heart is being pieced back together and made whole again when it was my understanding that anything that breaks could never be whole again. It always has cracks, places the glue cannot fully mend. She’s proving that wrong, and from the moment I accepted that I love her, nothing else seems to matter to me but her.

Except she’s starting her career, and I’m trying to climb the ladder of mine.

It’s so easy for her to say goodbye to me, and for me, it’s the fight of my life.

A point she proves when her hands on my chest push me back and her cheeks tint rose as she looks around.

I don’t have to, though. “No one saw us.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because I needed to taste you one last time so I wouldn’t forget, and I’ll always get it right anytime I allow myself to remember how your kisses feel.”

Emotion flashes across her face. “What are you trying to do to me, Jack? It was better between us when it was hate.”

Not love. She doesn’t say it, but the words are there, hovering between us.

“I’m not sure it was ever hate for me, Cinderella. Not really anyway. I’m hoping we can be friends.”

“Friends,” she repeats, testing the word.

“Yes. Friends. You know what those are. I think we can do it.”

She smirks. “Maybe.”

I’m going to take that as a yes. “Whether I make chief or not, you’ll match here. And I won’t knock on your door or text you for more than what we can have again. I can all but promise you both.” I square my shoulders and take a step back, forcing her hands to fall. “You’ve got patients to see, Miss Fritz.”

Her blue eyes hold mine and then she’s gone, and I can breathe again only I can’t because she took my breath with her.

“Oh good, you’ve got the X-ray,” Margot says, rounding the other corner. “I got everything we’re going to need to clean up her facial lacs and suture them once we make sure there’s no facial fracture. I offered for plastics to come, but she told me she’s ninety-one, and plastics isn’t giving her a facelift, so what’s the point?”

I chuckle, needing that bit of comic relief more than anything in the world.

“God, I love that woman.”

“Me too. So let’s help her because her wrist is going to need surgery.”

“I already texted Wynter.”

Margot smiles. “Good call.”

We slide open the door to Octavia’s room and get her X-rayed and sutured. She’s a good patient and asks us about our lives in that grandmotherly way as we try not to hurt her morethan she’s already hurt. She refuses pain meds, but she has to be in pain, though you’d never know it.

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