Page 56 of Kaz
A hand caught his shoulder, and he was jerked around, coming face to face with Kaz, whose eyes were wild and pleading.
“Please, Miles. Don’t do this. Not over something so stupid.”
He glared at Kaz, his teeth grinding hard. “If you think it’s so stupid, then just fucking tell me.”
Kaz’s hand fell to his side, his expression shuttered.
“That’s what I thought,” he mumbled, taking a step back.
“I love you,” Kaz said, his voice soft. “I’ve loved you since the day we met.”
His heart leapt, then set off in a gallop.
He’d wanted those words for almost a decade and a half. He’d thought he’d never get them, but hearing them now? It felt cheap. Like Kaz was only saying them as a last resort. He might not be, but Miles couldn’t shake the thought, the feeling.
“Love isn’t enough.” He shook his head and took a step back, his heart splintering even further. “We need trust and honesty, too.” He swallowed hard. “And we don’t have that. We’ve never had that. You made sure of it.”
This time, as he walked away from Kaz, it wasn’t anger he felt. It was something a lot more devastating.
∞ ∞ ∞
He shoved all his belongings into his bag, uncaring that everything got creased or smushed. He didn’t want to stay here a second longer than he had to. He needed to get away from Kaz, from all of this. Fuck the club. Fuck the bylaws.
He zipped up the bag and took off out of Kaz’s bedroom, hating how the room smelled of Kaz, ofthem. If he never smelled that earthy scent of leather again, he’d be a happy man. Or so he told himself.
He took the stairs down to the first floor and nearly ran straight into Emma. He frowned when he noticed she was wearing someone else’s shirt. It was much too big on her, bunching up under her cut. She didn’t look hurt, though, so he shook it off, deciding he would ask her later.
“Whoa, what’s got you…” Emma’s gaze dropped to the bag in Miles’s hand, then snapped back up. “You’re leaving?”
No sound came out when he opened his mouth, and he forcefully cleared his throat, giving himself a second to figure out what the hell to say to her. It wasn’t just Kaz he was leaving behind. He wouldn’t be able to visit Emma here. There was no way he could step into this house without falling apart.
He shifted his bag into his left hand and wrapped his other arm around Emma’s shoulders, bringing her against his body in a tight hug. She grabbed onto his shirt, her voice lightly quivering as she said, “Miles? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he lied, the words like sandpaper in his throat. “I just need to go.”
He didn’t give her time to protest before he slipped out of her embrace and made his way to the front door with hasty steps. He walked down the front patio steps and pulled out his phone to order a cab, but movement close by had him jerking his head up.
Kian was leaning against one of the two cars parked in front of the garage, an unreadable expression covering his handsome face. His long blond hair was pulled into a bun, his sea greeneyes tracking Miles’s every move as he walked toward him. Despite Kian’s relaxed demeanor, he still looked imposing with his wide shoulders, thick arms, and that damned leather cut. The countless tattoos didn’t help, either.
“He told me to take you home,” Kian said with a cocked brow.
Miles only grunted in answer and walked around the car to drop his bag on the back seat before getting in the car. Kian got behind the wheel, sparing him a confused look before he drove them down the driveway and out onto the road.
“What the hell happened? I thought you guys were finally good?”
Miles clenched his jaw and turned his gaze out the window.
“We’ve never been good.”
Oh, they’d been good at many, many things, but never the one that truly mattered: trusting each other with the truth. He’d been an idiot to think Kaz would start now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Kaz
HE WAS prepared for the fist coming at his face. He wasn’t prepared for the knee to his balls. Pain reverberated through his groin like fucking wildfire. He hunched over with a wheezing sound and grasped the back of the couch to keep from keeling over completely.
“The fuck did you do, you asshole?” Emma snapped at him.
