Page 229 of Hooking Up

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"Yeah. She thinks I'm a miserable bastard."

"You are."

He flips me off.

"You do hang a lot."

"So do the two of you."

True. But she doesn't smile at me the way she smiles at him. And Ryan only smiles around her. "Would you fuck her?"

"She's not interested."

"If she asked?"

"Fuck off." His cheeks flush. He shakes his head. Actually stammers over his words. "I'm lecturing you here."

"This topic is better."

"For you."

"Yeah." I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. That pounding deepens. Heaviness spreads over my body. It's like a switch.Thinking about Iris, pain. Thinking about anything else, relief. "Does that gaping hole in your chest ever go away?"

"No. But it gets better." His expression gets intense. Well, more intense. Ryan is always intense. "Did you really tell her the past is the past?"

"Yeah."

"That makes you the asshole."

"I know."

"She didn't do anything wrong."

"She should have told me."

"Is that really why you're miserable?"

"Yeah." What the hell else could it be?

"Bullshit. It's something else. I don't know what. But it's not that she didn't tell you."

"It is."

He shakes his head. "You should fix this."

"I can't."

"You can."

"All right, I can. But I don't want to."

"'Cause you convinced her to keep a secret?"

No. "Fuck off." Asshole is right.

But it's more than that.

I did convince her to keep this a secret.

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