“I don’t think you’ll believe anything I say,” I spoke dryly, feeling the need to break eye contact and look away. Those eyes…they made me remember too much. All those times we snuck around together, hooking up in the weirdest places because neither one of us wanted to bring the other back to their place.
We’d both hidden things from each other, and I’d made sure the bridges could never be repaired between us.
Levi’s jaw tensed, and even though I wasn’t looking at him, I knew he gazed steadily at me. “Why don’t you try the truth?”
The truth. As if the truth was simple. The truth of it all? It wasn’t simple, and it sure as hell wasn’t easy. The truth was we both fucked up, we both made bad decisions that we probably regretted. I mean, I couldn’t speak on his behalf, but I could speak on mine. I regretted going to Hillcrest. I’d regret it even if I would’ve chosen a random guy to hook up with, and not my best friend’s crush.
“The truth,” I echoed, faint. I finally drew my stare back to him, momentarily struck by how handsome he was. Why couldn’t Levi be hideous or something? It would make this a hell of a lot easier.
“The truth,” Levi said again. “I know it’s something we both have issues with.”
I shook my head. Levi had no right to sound so…normal after everything. After what he did, what I did, what I said… “I had a nightmare.”
His dark brows lifted. “A nightmare?”
“I dreamt that you saw me with…” I trailed off, biting my bottom lip as I fought with my mind, trying to figure out what to say without sounding absolutely pathetic. “I dreamt that you saw us, okay? And I…I hated it. When I woke up, I needed to see you.”
“But you didn’t see me. You hung around the Sigma Chi house.”
“I know. It wasn’t like I wanted to walk in and see you with anyone,” I muttered. “So I didn’t. I stayed outside. I might’ve, uh, fallen asleep or something, but—” I shrugged. “—that’s it. There’s really not a big story here.”
Levi said nothing for the longest time, studying me with those blue eyes, with that expression that made me even more guilty. “You know there’s no other girl out there for me,” he whispered, strangely serious.
That’s because this whole thing was serious. This was not a laughing matter.
“Yeah, well, you ruined me, I ruined you.” Again, I shrugged as I brought my hands to my lap, fiddling with my fingers under the table so he couldn’t see how nervous he made me. “I guess the ruination was mutual.” Was ruination even a word? I had no idea. Didn’t care.
I, Kelsey Yates, was nervous. Levi made me nervous. Completely flabbergasted me, because never before had any schlub with a schlong made me antsy or anxious, but Levi…Levi did it naturally. Levi did it without trying.
Fuck. I’d really fallen hard for this one, somehow.
“Before I give you your phone back, I want to know something.”
I immediately stopped fiddling with my fingers, flicking my eyes up to his. A shadow lingered there, a desire to know the truth. Somehow, someway, I knew exactly what he was going to ask, even before those sexy lips spoke the words. Something about that night, about what I did.
“Was he a mistake, or just me?” Levi leveled the question as if it was something easy to answer, even easier to say.
The only thing I could do was stare at him. I could lie, but…lying was what got us here in the first place. No, there was no point in lying now. No point in hiding the truth or sugarcoating it. If Levi wanted the truth, he’d get the truth, and in return, I’d get my phone back and never have it leave my sight again.
I’d said some hurtful things to Levi, it was true. Calling him a mistake was…terribly mean, and I honestly didn’t mean it. I’d meant it at the time as an insult, a way to get him to leave me alone, to convince myself that I didn’t feel anything for him.
A lie. It had been a lie, even then.
“If you’re trying to make me feel like shit, you don’t have to. I already feel like shit,” I told him, resisting the urge to bite my tongue and stop myself from saying something else I’d regret further down the road. “You know as well as I do that I only said that to try to convince myself to stop seeing you, but was he a mistake? Yeah, yeah he was. And if you’re wondering, I’ve also fucked up my friendship with my best friend because of it, so I don’t need your judgment, or your silly questions, or even that look on your face.”
Levi said nothing, which, as it turned out, was the wrong thing to say. Or, well, not to say.
“I might’ve fucked up my friendship with Ash beyond repair because I hooked up with someone she kind of likes, so please, Levi, don’t add any more shit onto my pile. I’ve already got enough shit for the next decade, at least.”
Levi leaned forward, setting his arms on the table between us. “So you regret it?”
Suddenly I was aware of how quiet the union was, how heavy the air around me felt. Or maybe that was just the weight of his question. “I do, not that it matters much.”
His blue eyes zeroed in on me, dropping to my mouth for only a split-second before he set two fingers on the screen of my phone and slowly slid it over to me, crossing the halfway
