Page 114 of Tell Me When It's Over

Swallowing, I catch his meaning. The unspoken threat that a good big brother would give anybody close to Chase. I respect it, even if it makes me uncomfortable.

“So,” he hedges, that accent smooth yet firm, “You need to cut him loose if this isn’t the kind of like that he feels for you. He deserves more than someone who’s hung up on another guy.”

My lips part, but nothing comes out. No words

, no oxygen. Lungs stinging, I force myself to take a breath and watch him push off the wall, suddenly forgetting the reason I’m here because all I hear is my thumping heart.

“No matter who the guy may be,” he adds.

He walks away.

Later, I’ll realize that he knows the truth before I do. A truth I don’t want to admit because it’ll change everything.

I miss the interview in a tangle of panic, sitting in the dressing room and staring at the string of texts from Chase that I hadn’t noticed until now because I’ve been lost in the only man who’s ever fully captured my attention.

Garrick’s words echo in my head.

Chapter Thirty

Leighton / Present Day

My thumbnail is practically nonexistent from all the biting I’ve been doing, but it’s settled between my lips while Chase looks at me. It started when I suggested we do something at his house instead of going out to dinner like he wanted since his Mom and her friends would be there for their book club. It’s…safer. Safer because the way he looks at me isn’t with any type of admiration like he used to, and though I deserve it, it doesn’t make me any less scared to do what I should have long before now.

I’m not surprised he walks us to the sunroom where we’ve done a lot of work together and asks, “What’s going on with us, Leighton?”

The question is overdue, and maybe I should have asked myself that a while ago when I let my thoughts linger to Kyler. But my need to turn those thoughts away had me holding onto what I had with Chase, no matter what that was. Until now, I’d wanted it to be more than friendship, because that meant whatever I had with Kyler was a fluke. That perhaps, maybe, I saw the man with the pretty brown eyes that the world loved as a safety net. Someone to depend on. And I do, but that’s not the sole reason.

I love Kyler because he remembers people’s names.

I love him because he endures the nasty things I eat, the music that I love, and books I read because he knows they make me happy.

I love Kyler because he’s always willing to do whatever is necessary to get me to smile, to understand that I’m worth it no matter what others tell me, and that my dedication to my future is admirable instead of embarrassing.

I’ve never pretended not to love Kyler Bishop, because I’ve gotten to love him for years. This kind just happens to be different—the type that people will judge and dissect and scold and discuss for years to come.

But love that we can’t have always lasts the longest, hurts the deepest, and feels the strongest because we have more to prove to those people than anything else.

My throat struggles to swallow, my lungs stinging from the lack of oxygen properly flowing as I search Chase’s distant eyes.

He sits on the edge of the red and white Hawaiian-themed bench cushions, his elbows resting on his bent knees. “I’ve been trying to get through to you for a while now but you’re not there anymore.”

Cringing, I accept the truth in that statement because he’s not wrong. I remain standing a safe distance away, not that the room is particularly large enough not to feel the rising tension in the air. A sweaty palm runs down the side of my leg, nerves building higher and higher in my chest. “Can I ask you something?”

He blinks at me slowly, shaking his head in exasperation. “If it gets you telling me what’s happening, then sure.” There’s a bite to his tone that I accept full responsibility for.

“Are you happy with me?”

Silence.

He leans back and stares at me, studying my squirmy figure as I shift on my feet. Eventually, one of his hands threads through his curly hair before scraping down the side of his face. “Is this your way of telling me you’re not happy with me? Because I think I’d rather you just come out with it.”

I suck in a breath. “It’s not that—”

He stands, throwing his hands up. “Then what is it, Leighton? We’ve been walking around whatever you haven’t told me for weeks now. Just tell me. What’s. Going. On?”

I’ve never seen Chase angry before. His eyes are darker, and his stature seems taller when he stands at full height as he waits. Waits for what? Me to tell him I’m miserable when I’m not? I’m happy with Chase…as friends. Everything else feels forced. If I’m being honest with myself, I think it felt that way even before Kyler walked in on us, like I was trying to convince myself that going further with him would somehow change my feelings, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise that we’d been interrupted. If one person feels that in a relationship, then doesn’t the other have to at some point as well?

“I’ve been…” Excuses linger at the tip of my tongue, but I wet my lips and walk over to the matching armchair. “I’m not unhappy with you, if that’s what you think. I only ask because neither of us has—” Stopping myself with the bad choice of words, I shake it off and regroup, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it.

---