Page 87 of Feast

“Because if you go, my mother’s going to figure out we’re together.”

Something flashed in her eyes, a flicker of hurt, then it was gone. She set her spoon aside. “Not if we don’t tell her.”

Spence dragged a hand through his hair. “Yes, she will.”

“How?”

“It’s hard to explain,” he hedged. “She just…knows things. About me. I’ve never been able to hide stuff like this from her.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t try,” she said, and the edge in her voice took him by surprise.

“What does that mean?”

“I mean, maybe we should tell them.”

“Tell them? That we’re…” He gestured first to her, then to himself.

“Yes, that we’re…” She mimicked his gesture.

“That’s not an option,” he said firmly.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because it’s not,” he said, putting as much finality into his voice as he could muster.

She blinked. “Wait. You don’t mean you don’t want to tell themnow, do you? You mean you don’t want to tell themever.”

“Yes. No.” Frustrated, he pushed back from the table and paced away to stare out the window. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you do,” she said in a voice so devoid of emotion he turned to look at her. She was staring at him, her whiskey eyes curiously flat. “You don’t ever want to tell them we’re together. Which makes me wonder, Spence, what the fuck we’re doing.”

The panic he’d felt before shifted, becoming a dread so heavy it turned his belly to lead.

“Are we dating?” she went on in that strange, dead voice. “Fuck-buddying? Because I’ll be honest, I thought we were dating. But I don’t think you see it that way, do you?”

At any other time, the phrasefuck-buddyingwould have made him laugh—it was just so Maddie. But there was no room for it amid the sudden sick panic. “I don’t know how I see it,” he hedged. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

The curious flatness in her eyes disappeared in a flash of temper. “Think about it now.”

Pinned like a bug on a board, he floundered for an answer. “We’ve known each other for less than a month, Maddie.”

“Plenty of time to decide if you’re dating someone or just fucking them,” she countered, not giving him an inch. “And I think that’s my answer.”

Moving with slow deliberation, she rose from the table. “I think I should go.”

He took a step forward, his instincts screaming at him to stop her. “You’re overreacting.”

“No, I don’t think I am,” she said, and when she lifted her eyes to his, he was stunned at what he saw there. They were bright with hurt, a mix of misery and anguish that threatened to take him to his knees.

“I like you, Spence,” she said, her voice still flat, a startling contrast to the roiling emotion all but spilling out of her eyes. “I like talking with you, spending time with you. I like fucking you. I’m not in love with you.”

For some reason that flat, emotionless statement was like a spear to the belly—he had to lock his knees against the pain.

“I’m not in love with you,” she repeated, and this time a hint of fierce determination accompanied the words, as though she was trying to convince herself of their truth. “But I could be.”

She paused to draw a deep breath, and as she did, he saw her chin tremble. “I very easily could be, and that’s why I should go.”

He stared, helpless, as she walked to the bench and sat to put on her boots. “We should talk about this.”

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