Her words scrape up my spine and my heart falls several inches in my chest. I tilt my head to see her face. “I wasn’t confused about the term ‘junk food,’ Logan. Rather, the choice of metaphor.”
She pulls her finger free, and touches the tip of my chin. “Like I want to shove you in my face but I worry I’ll feel awful afterward.” London scrunches up her nose in adorable frustration but then sighs, leaning into me.
So she means pretty much exactly what I thought. I close my eyes again, jaw tight, trying to ignore the visceral pull I feel when she’s this close, and instead let the anger and hurt boil up and out.
She wants me but will feel awful afterward.
I’m not only unhealthy, I’m regrettable.
“London?”
“Hmm?”
I move her off my lap and stand, looking down at her. “That comparison makes me feel like shit.”
She seems to realize exactly what she’s said, and her face falls. “No. Luke—”
“I haven’t been with anyone else. I want to be with you all the fucking time. I told you I love you, and you call me junk food? How is this any different than Daniel referring to girls as snacks?”
She stares up at me, surprise melting into regret. “You’re right, it’s not,” she says. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“But you think it.”
“Luke.”
She can say my name as many times as she wants but fuck this. I stand and brush the sand from my shorts, grabbing my board before I start to walk away. A hand wrapped around my forearm stops me, pulls me around to face her.
“I already don’t trust my judgment and now I’m falling for the most terrifying person possible,” she says. “You know why you missed my texts last night? Because they were buried in there with twenty other messages. You think I don’t realize that? How many women texted you last night, Luke? Forty? More? You used to bang anything with a *.”
She jolts, like her using such words surprised her, too. Which only makes me wonder how long they’ve been simmering just below the surface.
I hesitate, scowling at her even though I know exactly how right she is. I want to tell her she’s a pain in the ass, has no idea what the fuck is going on here or what I’m doing with who, but the first words out of my mouth are the most trivial: “Not anything.”
“Fucking hell, Luke.” She runs her hands through her tangled hair and stares up at me, exasperated. “Really?”
Maybe I should have gone with my first instinct—to tell her she’s right, but that isn’t me anymore. “London—”
“Have you considered that the reason you want me is because I’m resisting?” she asks. “Is it the cliché of the challenge? I mean, if we do this, and we’re together—”
“I know how to commit,” I growl. “I know what it looks like.”
“Fine,” she says, low and flat. “But before, Mia was all you knew. Now you’re used to that thrill of discovery, the chase. What if sex between us grows familiar? What if we’re together five years and you get bored? The thought of being with you, and you taking home some other—”
“Stop.”
I turn away. I can’t listen. It reminds me of the betrayal I felt when I slept with Ali. The idea of being with someone else when I could have London, of her being with another guy, actually shoves a spike into my head.
She grabs my arm again. “Stop walking away from me. All I’m saying is it’s hard, okay? I shouldn’t have said what I did back there, but I’m scared.” She takes a step closer, voice quiet when she says, “I’m trying not to be, but I’m terrified of what it could be like with you.”
“God—” I start, squeezing my eyes closed and digging both hands into my hair. I want to focus on what she’s telling me, but my fuse has officially run out. “Don’t you think this is scary for me, too?”
“Luke—”
A wave crashes, and the edge of the surf touches the very tips of our toes. The tide is coming in, and in a dramatic rush I want to see it crash over me. “Don’t you think I’m already in too deep?” I tell her. “If you decide now that we aren’t doing this, it’s going to hurt. But that was true a while ago and I decided to roll with it. I decided you’re worth it. That’s the difference. Fuck, I think I finally figured it out: falling in love isn’t about who makes you feel the best, but who could make you the most miserable if they leave.”
* * *
I HEAR A key in the lock about ten minutes after I get home from work and close my eyes, letting my head fall back against the couch. “No,” I say, and my sister’s response is immediate.
“Yes.”
“I’m not in the mood for this, Margot.”
I hear her drop a bag near the door before she flops on the couch next to me. “What makes you think I’m here to give you shit for something?”
“One, because you’ve been giving me shit for one thing or another my entire life. And two, I had a fight with London and I can only assume that through some form of female telepathy, you’ve found out and are over here to hand me my ass.”
“Wow,” she says.
I tilt my head to look at her. “So I’m wrong?”
“Well . . . no.”
I nod my head and take another pull from my beer.