Page 34 of Avalanche
I shake my head, not sure whether to laugh or yell at him or both. He loves her. He loves her and so he was just going to propose to her? Just like that? Doesn’t he know how crazy that is?
“And then Antoine… Antoine…”
I scrub at my face, blinking rapidly as I try to shut out the sound of his voice, the way he says Antoine’s name like a man begging for mercy.
“I-I kissed him.” The admission is a cry, soft and sharp as a bird shot out of the sky. “He… we… earlier today… we all… with Lily, and…” The words falter, lost amid harsh, choked sobs and sniffs.
I turn to look at him in alarm, staring at the mess of a man in front of me as if seeing him for the first time.
“Holy shit,” I breathe, because it all makes sense now. I think of the way the condo smelled, like come and sweat and lube. I think of Lily’s languid smile and Liam lounging with all the smugness of an overfed cat. I remember Matty’s dazed, almost guilty expression when I teasingly asked what the hell they’d all been doing.
“Holy shit,” I repeat.
“And now he’s going to marry her,” he rasps.
I take a careful step back, my heels scraping ice from the steps, my bare hands numb as I grip the rail.
What the fuck am I supposed to say to all of this? What am I supposed to do? What do you say to someone who fucked around with a guy for presumably the first time, only to have that guy propose to the girl he wanted to marry?
And who knows what the hell those guys did, but I’ve heard enough of Liam and Antoine through the thin walls of the condo to suspect that whatever they did, Matty wasn’t ready for it. Matty, who was a virgin about five minutes ago. Matty, who has been carrying his dead grandma’s wedding ring in his pocket so he could propose to Lily.
I grit my teeth, jaw clenching with irritation at the whole situation.
I didn’t sign up for this. I just wanted to date Lily.
If this was anyone except Matty standing in front of me, I would have told him to get a fucking grip and left him standing in the cold.
But this is Matty.
“Okay.” The word drags out of me on an exhale, clouding in the space between us. I pat the jacket’s pocket, some of the tightness in my chest relaxing when I feel the bulge of Liam’s wallet inside. “Change of plans.” I shoot Matty a smile, sharp and fast and forced. “We’re going out for dinner. You’re going to tell me what happened. Everything.”
I cringe inwardly as I say this, because I’m not entirely sure I want to hear about what the four of them got up to today. But whatever. Fine.
“And then you and I—we’re going to work out a plan.”
Chapter 10
Lily
I don’t know if I can do this.
The thought hits me at 4am, a sharp panicked thing that rushes straight through my dreams, pulling me up to the surface like a fish on a hook. I stare up at my ceiling, my breaths a short staccato against the sound of Seth’s sleepy rumbles.
I thought I was bringing these guys together. I thought we could do this, the six of us.
But I’m just tearing them all apart.
I press one hand to my chest, to where my heart hammers beneath my sweat-damp tank top. There’s an ache there, an emptiness that almost feels like loneliness. Like the note of a song unfinished, or a poem stopped on the upswing with the last stanza unspoken.
I’m not just tearing them apart. I think I might be ripping myself apart, too. Shredding myself into little scraps in an attempt to make them all happy. To not let any of them down. Trying to break myself into six slices of Lily.
But if I do that, what will be left for me?
A sob bursts out of me, an earthquake cracking a fissure through the silent darkness before I can stop it. I clasp a sweaty palm to my mouth, turn into my pillow, but it’s too late.
“Lily?”
Seth’s sleepy murmur has me squeezing my eyes shut, holding my breath, like maybe that can stop my crying.
