Page 104 of Alive At Night

“Juniper…”

God, I usually loved when he said my full name, but I hated this.

Julian took three steps backward, leaning against the office door. He stared at the ceiling for a few moments, catching his breath. Eventually, he lowered his gaze.

“We can’t.”

He said it so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it.

“We can’twhat?”

I knew the answer, but I wanted him to say it, to spell it out.

“Do this.” He waved a finger back and forth. “Let it happen again. You’re Gemma’s best friend. We share an office, for fuck’s sake. We’re… It’s not a good idea.”

“So…why—why did you kiss me?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow. I pressed my fingers to my lips, feeling the ghost of his.

“It was the way you were talking about yourself,” he replied in a low voice. “As if it was out of the realm of possibility for me to want you, when in reality…”

He didn’t finish his sentence, and it tore me up inside. If the reality was that he wanted me, why was he pushing me away?

“But we’re just not a good idea, Juni,” he finished weakly.

He was right about that. None of this had been a good idea. But it seemed a little too late, didn’t it?

“Maybe taking me to Sofia’s wedding wasn’t a good idea, either,” I said testily, awkwardly yanking my skirt down, fully covering my legs again. “While I appreciated it, maybe you shouldn’t have bothered.”

“I didn’t want anyone else taking you,” he said evenly. “I told you.” When I glared at him with barely concealed irritation, he added, “If it hadn’t been for Gemma and work, I probably would have told Noah to fuck off myself.”

His admission made me suck in with surprise. He—what?

Julian’s heated look remained steady. It was something close to a dare—daring me to deny the truth of his words. I didn’t want to, though. I desperately wanted them to be real.

“I don’t know how to go back,” I said, admitting the very thing I’d been trying to figure out since yesterday when he dropped me off at my apartment. It was the reason I’d prepared my little speech, which he’d naturally interrupted. Julian liked to ruin things for me in the best and worst ways. I didn’t know how to go back, but I’d been ready to try.

But now? We couldn’t go back now.

“We can’t go back,” I said more forcefully.

“We have to,” Julian insisted, and I scowled. He noted my expression and grew exasperated. “Yes, we kissed, but—”

“Twice,” I interjected.

Not to mention everything else he’d just done to me.

My cheeks flamed, and I hoped to hell Julian didn’t notice.

“Twice,” he acknowledged. “We kissed twice. Impulsively. Unplanned. And now we canplanto not do it again.”

“That’s what you want?” I probed, trying to ignore how much it hurt to hear those words.

Julian just stared at me, jaw clenching.

“There’s a difference between impulsivity and living in the moment, Julian.”

He exhaled loudly, but his eyes didn’t move from mine. “Explain it to me.”

I slid off the desk and back to my feet, even though my legs felt like jelly. I wanted to be on the same ground as Julian. “Sometimes it feels good to prolong moments where you can really live before being crashed back into a reality where you just exist.”

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