Page 20 of Only When We Fall

I barely register the music now. Emmie’s face is still burned into my vision, even after she’s gone. Lips flushed, eyes wide. And not because of me. Because ofhim.

I push up from my chair, shaking off the girl trying to tuck herself closer. “Back in a sec,” I mutter, though no one’s listening. My eyes are locked on the doorway Emmie just disappeared through.

I don’t know what I’m going to say. Maybe nothing. Maybe I just want her to see me again, to remember who we used to be.

I’m halfway across the room when a figure steps cleanly into my path.

Landon.

He looks calm with his hands stuffed in his pockets, but there’s steel in the set of his jaw. “Don’t.”

I raise a brow. “Don’t what?”

“You know exactly what,” he says, voice low. “Let her go.”

I snort, taking a step to the side, which he mirrors. “You think you’re her bodyguard now?”

“No,” he says easily. “I think I’m her friend. And she’s happier without you, Kai. You heard her say it, that you were barely anything at all. So let her have something real now.”

I laugh, but it sounds wrong in my throat. “You thinkyou’rethat something?”

He doesn’t answer right away, instead looking at me as if I need saving. “I think it doesn’t matter who it is, as long as it’s not you.”

For a beat, we just stare each other down, the music thumping in the background, distant and irrelevant.

Then he steps back. Not in fear, but in quiet confidence.

I remain there for a second, rooted to the spot. The door is still open. I could follow her. I could ignore Landon and every smug word he just fed me. That used to be my thing, doing what I wanted, consequences be damned.

But suddenly, it all feelsdifferent.Off. Heavy.

I drag a hand through my hair and turn back toward my table. The girls are still laughing, draped over chairs, one of them gesturing for me to come back. They think I’m some kind of prize. A toy they all want to take a turn with. And usually, I wouldn’t mind. Usually, I’d play along.

Tonight, I slide into my seat and grab a bottle instead. I don’t bother to offer words, or even flirt, I just drink.

Seb casts me a sideways glance, nudging my foot under the table. “You good, man?”

“Peachy,” I mutter, swigging again.

He looks as if he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. Probably knows better. Because it’s obvious I’m not good at all. Seeing her laugh like that, withhim, it did something. Shoved a mirror in my face and made me look.

I’ve been here two weeks, and I’ve already lost count of the names, the nights, the noise. The same girls, the same parties, the same empty buzz that fades by morning.

But Emmie?

She was never part of that blur. Not even when I tried to make her be.

And now she’s out there, moving on, dancing, laughing. And I’m sat here with nothing but cheap vodka and the feeling that maybe Landon’s right.

Maybe I should leave her the hell alone.

My thoughts are interrupted when Alex slides into the seat beside me. She eyes the bottle before taking it from me and swigging some herself. “Bad night, dear?” she asks, her voice teasing.

I scoff. “The worst.”

She stares straight ahead as my eyes trail Emmie as she pushes through the crowd and rejoins her table.

“I can’t stop thinking about that thing you did with your tongue last night,” Alex says thoughtfully.

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