“He was the one who sent Phoenix to Syria. He was the one who insisted we keep it from her and keep them apart. But somehow her death is my fault?” he yelled in my face, as if I was the one accusing him. “Fuck. That.”
“Stop the blame game, Célian. Every relationship you touch wilts. Every connection you make perishes. I don’t want to burn. I want to flourish. I deserve to bloom.”
I turned around again, heading for the station. This time he grabbed my wrist so hard I thought he was going to yank my arm off. I think he realized it, too, by the way he withdrew his hand quickly and gathered me into a hug—a hug I wanted to reject but chose to drown in, a hug I knew would catch me the right way if I ever fell, from a man who’d made no promises to be there when I needed him.
I wrapped my arms around his body, he buried his face in my hair, and for a few long seconds, we didn’t say anything. Every bad feeling was crushed between our pressing chests.
“Weren’t you the one who said you can’t fall in love?” he sneered after a few beats, cocking his head sideways. “What happened to that?”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“I care.” He took a step back, slapping his fist over his chest. “I should have been spending time with your father today. Instead, I took you on a goddamn date,” he spat the word out like it was poisonous.
I couldn’t even deal with the idea of him hanging out with my dad on a regular basis. When did that start happening?
“Know when the last time I took someone on a date was? Sixteen. Pretty sure I did that for a hand job. Since then, I don’t have to try. I’ve never tried.”
I snorted, too aware of the fact that an audience had gathered around us. “Should I feel special right now?”
His jaw locked, and his eyes darkened, like he’d remembered who he was. Who I was. “At least have the decency to be honest with yourself, Chucks. You don’t want me to care. You want me, period.”
I turned around and gave him the one thing he did not unrightfully yet claim.
My back.
“All I’m saying is he’s like a half-priced facelift in an unregistered clinic in Eastern Europe. I would still do it, even knowing it’s deadly.” Grayson tossed a piece of Romaine lettuce into his mouth and chewed loudly.
We were sitting at Le Coq Tail on our lunch break—me, him, Ava, and Phoenix. It had been a few days since my failed date—or whatever that was—with Célian, and in a moment of weakness I’d decided to confide in my close friends about the affair. Although, suffice it to say, they’d already had a pretty good idea.
“Trust me, girl, we can all see Célian’s appeal.” Ava sucked hard on the straw swimming in her glass of Diet Coke. “But consider it your official intervention. After we got a first-row seat to the shitshow called your relationship, I can honestly say you need to put a lid on that thing before your crazy starts to simmer.”
I bumped my fists together twice, Friends-style. “I’m not crazy.”
I was seventy-percent sure of that statement.
Ava clucked her tongue. “Neither was Lily. I think it’s something about the Laurent dick. They make their women unbalanced. I heard Célian’s mother is not the sanest, either.”
“We’re casual.” I tried another tactic.
Gray pouted and rolled his eyes. “Is that why he casually claimed your ass a la Khal Drogo saving his princess from an army of savages when you had lunch on our floor last week? Admit it. You got your boss pussy-spelled.”
“That’s not a word,” Phoenix pointed out, pointing his sandwich at Grayson. “But it damn straight should be.”
“What do you think?” I turned to Phoenix.
I knew Célian had paid him a visit the other day, and I knew he’d ordered him to stay away from me, beyond platonically. A part of me was furious with Célian, and another hoped what I thought he couldn’t admit to himself: that I wasn’t the only person falling around here, and he, too, didn’t have a parachute to save him from the plunge.
It’s just sex.
It’s just a distraction.
You can’t fall in love.
You’ve never fallen in love.
Phoenix bit the inside of his cheek.
“Are you high?” Ava asked. “Phoenix and Célian hate each other.”
But Phoenix looked up and told me point blank, “I think you’re his atonement. He wants to save you, but you’re the one who needs to save him.”
I did a double take, placing my roast beef sandwich on my plate.
He looked serious. “I’ve known Célian for a few years now—since before I started working at LBC. I’ve seen him and Lily together—even when they were really together.” He lifted his chin, his voice cracking. “Célian looks at you the way I looked at Camille, like he would burn the world for you. Just because he doesn’t want to recognize it doesn’t make it any less true. If the rumors surrounding him and his family are correct…” He averted his gaze to Ava and Gray, and that’s when I knew he knew about Lily and Célian’s father, probably through James Townley, who had his hand and ears everywhere in the LBC building. “Then Célian’s trust in people is nonexistent, and rightly so. He is calloused, distrustful, and hardened, but he is also screwed, and he knows it.”