Page 124 of Fighting Spirit

Her frown turns into a beaming smile as she hugs my arm, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. I lean down and drop my own to the top of her head. Her usually unruly waves are pulled back in a French braid I did this morning. Fuck, I’m so gone for her.

We walk through the store like that, her arm looped around mine as we gather everything else we might need. “We never should have come in before dinner,” says Ruth, nodding down at the basket mostly made up of snacks.

“You saywelike I had any part in this.”

“You were meant to be supervising!”

“Sure.” I smile down at her indulgently. “Because you take supervision so well.”

She looks up at me indignantly, her mouth opening, ready to argue, when a voice sounds from in front of us.

“Ainsley?”

My head shoots up, and my gut sinks as I consider the man standing at the end of the aisle.

Oh shit.

Taylor stands there, his face a mask of confusion as his eyes bounce between Ruth and me. I see the minute he recognizes her, the slight raise of his brows a harbinger of doom. Even with how wasted he’d been that night, her face appearing out of the toad head would have left an impression.

“Hey,” I say. My mind races as I try to make sense of what’s happening. I thought that living off campus would give me enough separation, that I could keep one foot in each of my two worlds and not end up in the kind of shitstorm that’s just landed at my feet.

He comes closer, giving Ruth a curious smile. “Aren’t you-”

“Yeah,” I say, harsher than I mean to. He knows exactly who she is.

Ruth takes a half step closer to me, like she’s looking to me for a safe place. It fuckin’ guts me.

Taylor studies the two of us, and even though I know he isn’t trying to be an asshole, I want to growl at him to back off, to get the fuck out of here and stop taking a damn crowbar to the gaping crack in my life.

“And you two are…” He smirks, and I want to smack it off of him. I know this isn’t his doing. I’ve created this by being such a coward, by always waiting for some perfect moment. I’ve left it so long that it can’t be described as anything other than deceptive. But fuck. He just had to be here didn’t he?

I look down at Ruth, and I want to throw up. She’s staring back up at me, green eyes shining with a hopeful smile as she waits for me to say something. She’s expecting me to do the normal thing in this situation and introduce my girlfriend to the friend we’ve run into. I open my mouth to speak, but the words turn to chalk on my tongue.

It would be so easy to get everything set straight, but I’m afraid.

Simmons, the strain on Fitz, everything that followed.

Rallying together, rallying against Allbreck, it’s what kept the team from falling apart. My mind hits a wall, and all I can picture is their faces, the questions. Why did it take me so long to tell them? What else am I hiding? I’ve seen the way things can spiral, and I don’t know how to stop that from happening.

“Ro?” Taylor asks, frowning at my panicked expression.

I give him the barest glance, unable to look away from Ruth.

I see it, the moment she realizes what’s happening here. Her face falls, millimeter by millimeter. That trusting expression washed away as hurt replaces it. Her eyes dart to Taylor before they meet mine again, filled with questions. I could cry as her lips part on a pained gasp.

“What…” She doesn’t finish.

I close my eyes, not able to take it anymore.

“I’ll catch you at practice,” Taylor says hesitantly before turning on his heel.

The silence that follows stretches tight between us. I worry that if it breaks, something will shatter between us, and I’ll never be able to put it back together.

“Rowan?” Her voice is almost a whimper. “Who was that?”

She knows. She remembers him from that first night. That’s not what she’s asking. She wants me to tell her that he’s nobody, some guy I barely know, who barely knows me and wouldn’t have a reason to know about the girl I’m spending all my nights and half my waking hours with. I wish that’s what I could tell her, but I can’t lie. I’ve done enough of that to last me the rest of my life.

I open my eyes and stare into her face, letting the look of pure pain sock me in the chest. I don’t say anything. I can’t.

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