Page 100 of The Fate Of Us

“No,” she shoots back, quick as anything.

“Why?”

“Because I never wanted to stop talking to you, I never wanted you out of my life, Nate.”And while she’s saying all this, she squeezes my arms tighter as we push past a group of males, her grip loosening when we clear them. “It was you who cut contact with me, remember?”

I suppose it was, but…

Like she wanted to get her train of thought back on the right track, she shakes her head.“That doesn’t matter right now. We need to talk about what happened the other day.”

“The kiss?” I ask her, getting only a small nod in return. “Which one?”

She slowed our synced steps as I watched her head tilt in my peripheral. “The real one.”

“I don’t think I was pretending with either of them, to be honest.”

That gets her attention, ripping the sunglasses from her face as her feet halt in the middle of the sidewalk, the swarms of people still moving around us. “So why’d you run off after we stopped filming?”

My silence and wide eyes tell her better than I could.

“An attack?” I nod, hating the way her eyes dulled. “God, Nate, I’m sorry.”

I shake my head, not caring about anyone else but her as I tore away my glasses too. “It’sprobably the only time when having you near me hasn’t helped to kill it.”

The weight of that memory pulled my head forward, honks and the sizzle from the steam grates lathering my ears. Addy’s arm slid off me, her surprisingly cold hand trailing down my forearm, skating over my pulse that gave away how what I’d just said had been a lie.

Having her here now was making my heart break every speed limit imaginable.

I see the moment she feels it, my erratic pulse pounding through her delicate fingers. Herlashes flutter as she interlocks her hand with mine, and for a moment, were eighteen again. That image of us made my eyes catch hers as they pried open, the memories of too many hours in the sun and pruned fingers from our swimming breaks painted on the fiery canvas of her eyes.

I licked my lips nervously as I muttered, “I’m sorry, if the kiss, the one at my place, upset you… or if what I’d done—”

“You don’t have to apologise for it.” Our fingers pulsed. “It was a reflex, for both of us, Isuppose. Muscle memory and all that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” her eyes fell to the sidewalk before they met mine again. “Okay, rememberwhen I’d come to you when I was upset, after a day of filming and I was just… I needed you?” I nod. “And then you’d hold me, and… kiss me, and then suddenly everything would be okay again?” I nod, the memories making me smile unconsciously. “That’s what I mean, it was a reflex, something we couldn’t control.”

She nods as she says that, like she’s trying to convince herself that that’s all it was to her.

So I have to ask. “Was that what it was to you? A reflex you couldn’t control?”

Addy looks at me like she knows I’ve caught her, before her eyes dip, scanning the fewpeople around us before her shaky eyes find their way back. “Well… I guess, I…”

Without a thought racing through my head, I lifted my palm to her cheek, holding her likeI had that morning. The tips of my shoes meet her, and after a second of skating my thumb across her soft skin, I tuck a strand of flames behind her ear.

Her stare doesn’t leave mine, and something about that makes me smile down at her, asshe practically whispers. “No, I don’t think so.”

“So you wanted me to kiss you?” The question leaves my lips before it can fly throughmy mind.

But, like she didn’t have to search for the answer, her lips popped open. “I think I’ve spent thelast seven years trying to guess what it would feel like if we kissed again, and in that moment…” she shrugged. “My curiosity won.”

She’d wanted this. How long had she wanted this? I found myself ditching her stare whileI thought about how long I’d wanted it, whether I knew it or not.

Before I can deny that I’d always wanted to kiss her again, her head tilts, those fierywaves falling past her shoulder. “Did you really mean what you said, at the premiere?”

I think we need to talk. About everything.

“Yes…” I nod at her. “But, not here.” The way her eyes dipped before they met mineonce more… told me that she knew… knew that there was only one place we had to talk. The corner of my mouth tugged up into a smile as I told her, “When we’re home.”

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