Page 23 of Second Quarter Comeback
“Eavesdropping isn’t very neighborly,” he says, his tone casual, without sparing me so much as a glance.
I freeze, heat rushing to my cheeks. Caught. Of course, I got caught. Subtlety has never been my strong suit.
“Neither is talking loud enough for someone to overhear,” I counter, stepping fully into view because if I’m going down, I’m doing it with dignity. Or whatever’s left of it.
He turns to face me, and the faint smirk tugging at his lips is enough to make my blood pressure spike. God, I hate that smirk. Hate that it still does something to me, something I’d rather die than admit.
“Maybe you’re right,” he says amused.
We stand there for a beat, the silence stretching between us. The city feels too quiet, the hum of trafficbelow not nearly enough to drown out the way my pulse is hammering.
“You really planning to ignore me for the next year?” he asks, like it’s a casual question, like we’re old friends catching up instead of . . . whatever the hell this is.
I take a sip of my wine, letting the sharpness settle me. “I don’t see the point of having this—or any—conversation, Killion,” I say, keeping my tone as even as possible.
“We could be friends,” he dares to suggest. He fucking dares to say it, like he didn’t obliterate any chance of friendship fourteen years ago.
“We could,” I say with a smile so sweet it could curdle milk. “But I choose not to. I’m pretty selective about the people I surround myself with. You and I . . . You get it, right? Things between us can’t go anywhere.”
I feel some kind of satisfaction that I’m able to throw those exact words in his face. That’s exactly what he said to me the day he broke up with me.
“Cam—”
“No, you’re not allowed to say anything. You lost that right, remember?” I cut him off, shaking my head. “But tell you what, Killion. We’ll create a schedule to use the balcony. When you’re out here, I’ll stay inside. When I’m out here, you stay inside. That’s as friendly as this can get.”
“But—”
“Have a good night, Killion Crawford,” I say, my tone tight, as polite as I can manage without screaming at him. Because that’s who I am now. Fucking polite.
“See you around, baby, sweet dreams,” he says, his voice softer than I expected, almost resigned. Though I’m sure he’s trying to bait me with the ‘baby’ and ‘sweet dreams’ but I don’t turn around.
I retreat to my side of the balcony, my heart racing as I shut the door behind me. The glass is cool against my back as I lean against it, clutching my wine.
The distance I created all those years ago—the thousands of miles, the years spent avoiding his name, his face—has collapsed in an instant. And I don’t know how to rebuild it. How to keep this polite. How to not scream at him for the way he left, for everything he didn’t say, for all the ways he broke me.
He deserves the rage of that eighteen-year-old girl who didn’t know better, who trusted him with her heart only to have it smashed to pieces. But instead, here I am, playing nice. Playing polite.
God, I hate this city. No. It’s not the city, but him.
I fucking hate Killion Crawford, and there’s no way around it.
Now, to live next door to the enemy for a year—I’ll make it less. There’s no way I can stick around for longer and not burn his place down to the ground—because I know him. He’ll be stubborn about creating a friendship and will piss me off so much that I’ll have to teach him a lesson.
Chapter Thirteen
Killion
How to Read the Defense and Still Fail
The apartment falls silent again, but my thoughts are louder than a stadium crowd. Camille on the terrace made everything real. Too real.
She’s really here. Here. After all these years.
I glance toward the balcony, half-expecting to see her leaning against the railing again, but she’s gone. Just the thought of her being next door makes my chest feel tight, and I can’t decide if it’s excitement, dread, or a fucked-up combination of both.
Can I keep being this polite? Pretending that her telling me to fuck myself—twice in one day—didn’t get under my skin? Because, spoiler: it did.
Part of me wants to remind her. Of what, though? That we had something real once? That I wasn’t always an asshole? But then again, what right do I have? I lost any claim to her the moment I walked away.
