“Yeah,” I say softly, staring at my tea.
“And by people, you mean—”
“People,” I finish for him. And then I nod.
“Does Jonah know about this?”
I shake my head. Sip my tea.
“Don’t . . . please don’t think you have to do that around me.” He’s so close now that we’re practically touching. “I hate not being able to gauge how you are.”
“It’s better this way,” I whisper, but he shakes his head no.
“Please,” he murmurs. “Just let me in.”
I focus on his hand resting against the counter, and of all the lovely things that hand is capable of doing to me. And then, despite Caleb telling me not to, I slowly drop the shield around me.
I’m left vulnerable and open and ashamed that he can now sense everything in me that shouldn’t be there.
We stand in the kitchen in silence for a few minutes, me sipping my tea, him staring at the counter next to us. “So,” I say, because I can’t stand it anymore, “Sophie, huh?”
He sighs heavily. “It’s not like you think.”
“You looked happy.” I’m chewing on glass. “When I first saw you two at the restaurant. Before you saw me.”
It’s not an accusation.
He grapples for something to say, but is unable to actually string a series of cohesive words together. “I’m . . . it’s like this, I mean . . . she’s . . .” He pulls at his hair again. “I never actually thought you’d ever meet Sophie.”
“Why not?”
“She’s . . .” He leans back against the counter, and his hands move up and down, from the tile to his hair to his legs, like they don’t know where they ought to be. “She’s nobody.”
I don’t think anyone who’d ever seen, let alone met Sophie, could ever claim that. “She’s somebody that obviously makes you happy.”
He stares over my shoulder, at the fridge. “Do you know why I’m not at that party tonight?”
“Because of work?”
Kellan presses his palms against his forehead, as if he’s trying to push out a headache. “Today wasn’t supposed to happen.” It’s obvious he’s exhausted. “Sophie is . . .” His hands drop and he looks at me, really looks at me. “I didn’t expect to have to talk to you about this, but I guess, in light of what’s happened . . .” He takes the cup out of my hand and sets it on the counter. “Seeing other girls—that’s always been a distraction to help me deal with all of this shit. It’s ridiculously superficial, and that’s the way I prefer it.”
“But,” I begin, and he shakes his head, not finished. His fingers brush up against mine on the counter, so soft, but enough to generate enough electricity to power the entire building. “What you’re feeling, all of this mess of jealousy and anger and pain and sadness . . .”
I close my eyes, shamed that he knows it all.
“All of this,” he continues, his fingers now overlapping mine, “is what I feel every single time I see you with my brother.”
I slam, headfirst, into a well-deserved wall of guilt.
“Sometimes,” he adds, “it’s hard to even breathe.”
I stare up at him.
“Sophie is the latest distraction. She’s nice, funny, sexy, intelligent—I mean, she’s pretty much everything anyone would want when they’re looking for a girlfriend. And yeah, I’ve been seeing her for awhile, because . . . because she’s been a pretty good distraction.” He laughs bitterly. “That makes me sound like such an asshole, doesn’t it?”
I didn’t think I could dislike Sophie Greenfield more, but I do now. Even still, I say, as sincerely as I can, “That’s good. I mean, if she’s all those things to you—”
“You told me tonight that she’s in love with me.” He sighs. “And I can’t . . . I guess my selfishness can only go so far.”
My throat is dry and sticky at the same time. “What do you mean?”
“It isn’t fair to let Sophie feel that way. I honestly believed until today that she was on the same page as me.”
“Meaning?”
“I was very clear with her from the beginning. I don’t want anything more from her than superficiality.”
I patently ignore what superficiality is a placeholder for. “If she’s all those things to you, and she says she’s never been happier with someone than she feels with you, then why—”
“You know why it’s not fair, C. I can never, ever remotely feel even the tiniest bit of that towards her.”
The terrible impulse to both cry and celebrate rings throughout me. “She loves you,” I say, trying my best to be selfless.
“I don’t care,” he says quietly.
“You were happy with her. I saw it.”
“No,” he says. “It was an act, and you know it.”
I swallow hard. “I shouldn’t have come over. If I were smart, I would’ve walked away instead of sitting down, and you’d be at the party with her right now, having fun.”
“But you did sit down.”