Page 72 of Reckless Liar

He didn’t seem to notice my reluctance. “She must’ve needed to be somewhere.”

“I doubt it,” I mumbled into the blanket. I frowned at the uneven corners and shook the blanket out to try folding it again.

“What do you mean?” He sat back on the couch; his long legs stretched out in front of him.

“I think she suspects,” I said into the blanket as I lined up the corners to fit together exactly.

“Suspects? Like you and me?” he asked, smiling. I nodded at him. “Would that be such a bad thing? I’m telling you, the sooner we tell people about us, the better.”

“I don’t want to tell Eloise. It’s too soon to say what’s going on.”

“Nope.” He argued. “Not at all. I’m disputing that, right here, right now.”

For the first time since he walked in, I looked him in the eyes. He’d finished his apple, setting the core on the side table next to him. His expression was serious. I leaned a little closer to him. “I mean it. Telling her would hurt her. You heard her last night.”

“She was drunk,” he countered.

“She hates the idea of us together. You heard her.How could you? Both of you?”I mimicked her.

“Yeah, but she was drunk. She got into a fight with Dana. She was already pissed off. I’m sure we weren’t the only ones who got to see that side of her last night.”

“We deserved it,” I mumbled. “At least, I deserved it.”

“What?” he asked incredulous. “What are you talking about? We didn’t deserve any of that stuff Eloise said last night.”

“I do.” I ran my hands over the top of the perfectly folded blanket before setting it in the basket carefully. “I deserve worse than anything Eloise could say.”

He scoffed loudly. “You’re being dramatic. We’re not doing anything wrong.” He paused, his face clouding over. “Unless you don’t want to tell her because you don’t want to be with me? You don’t want to be seen with me?”

“No, that’s not how I would say it...”

“So how would you say it? What do you think we’re doing here?” He crossed his arms against his chest and waited me out as I tried to get the words together.

“I don’t know, okay? I want to be with you, but I also know I’m no good for you,” I blurted out, shocking myself with my candor.

He rolled his eyes at me. “I’m an adult, Ana. Let me make my own choices,” he scolded.

I sighed, the pain in my chest bursting through, my eyes running over. I stood up to put some distance between me and Xander. “You don’t realize, do you? You think I’m this sweet girl. You say you love me, but how can you love me when you don’t know the real me? You have no idea what I’m capable of. If you knew, you wouldn’t say you loved me.”

He stood up to grip my face between his hands, his gaze fierce. “Nothing you could tell me could change my mind about you.”

I pulled away from him, stepping back. “You don’t know what you’re saying. If I told you the truth...” I covered my face, shaking my head. “It’ll destroy you. It’ll destroy us.”

He stepped closer to me, not allowing me space. His eyes were bright and bore into me. “You can’t know that. Try me.”

I shook my head and tears leaked through my fingers. Even though he wasn’t talking anymore, I kept shaking my head, trying to shake the words from my head and figure out how I could’ve ruined such a beautiful moment between us.

“Just tell me,” he pleaded. “It can’t be as bad as you think.”

A wave of exhaustion set into me. The burden of keeping this to myself in the face of Xander pleading for answers was too much. I wasn’t by nature a secretive person. I cupped my cheeks and refused to look up at him as I confessed.

“It’s my fault he died.”

“No, it isn't. There’s a difference between killing him—physically killing him—and not seeing the signs for what they were, Ana.”

“I know that. I’m trying to explain this to you...”

“You remember what I told you after Max died?” He interrupted softly, his long fingers tapping a rhythm. “We sat on the edge of his bed, and you cried into my chest. You kept talking about how you should’ve been able to save him. Do you remember?”

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