Page 59 of Your Only Fan
“You wantedmeto giveyouanother chance,” I say.
Are people watching us? I can feel eyes on me, but I don’t know if it’s my imagination or not, and I can’t take my eyes off Ezra. I don’t want to. I want him to know I’m here for him and just him.
“What?” he says and swivels around again, his lips curling to the side, his forehead creasing.
“When you thought you did something wrong our last night together. You messaged me asking for a chance to make up. You didn’t know what you did wrong, but you wanted a chance.”
It’s a very long shot, but I’m hanging on by a thread. I need to have a moment with him. Just one so I can tell him how it was for me.
“That was different. You just told me to leave without an explanation. It’s obvious you know what you did wrong,” he says.
Even though he sounds ready to dismiss me again, he sets his bags down. He’s giving me a chance to explain. If I wasn’t so terrified of losing him, I’d have jumped for joy.
But that would totally send the wrong message.
“I know. I know. But you don’t know the why,” I say.
“I know why,” he snaps.
“No. You don’t,” I say. My voice raises even though I didn’t intend it to.
His eyebrow arches over the shades, and I feel the urge to lean in and take them off him so I can look into his beautiful gray eyes and plead my case.
“I’m sorry. I’m… I just can’t live with myself knowing you’re mad at me,” I explain. “I need you to know I never meant to hurt you.”
“Right,” he scoffs.
“I didn’t,” I yell.
He looks around us and twists his lips.
“Sorry,” I say. It’s all I seem able to say.
His hand grabs me around my arm and pulls me to the side before I can even understand what’s going on.
My back is pressed against a wall, and I see behind Ezra the sign for the men’s restrooms.
“Look, I never intended to invite you over. It was… my friend thought meeting you might help me get over my crush for you. He said I should fuck you out of my system.”
Ezra grimaces at my words and there’s a pang in my heart. I’m losing him again. If I haven’t lost him already.
But no. If I had, he wouldn’t be standing here listening to me.
“It’s stupid. I know. And I only realized how stupid after our first night together. Because if anything, my feelings… my feelings got stronger for you. The way you looked after me. The way you were with me unlike anyone else I’d watched you with.
“I know I should have told you who I was sooner. I know. But… I didn’t want to ruin things. I didn’t want you to think I was taking advantage—”
A breathy chuckle cuts me off, and he takes his glasses off.
“Seriously?” he asks, those grey eyes glimmering as usual.
Maybe this is the last time I get to see them up close.
“Well, in my head, as long as you didn’t know who I was, it kept the dynamics of our academic relationship out of the bedroom. It’s stupid. I know. But I was terrified you’d think I was using you when… when I was only falling in love with you and I didn’t know how to break it to you.”
“Well, that’s some bullshit,” he snaps.
“I know. But it’s how I felt.”
