“Figured what out? What the hell are you all talking about?”
“That you’re in love with her,” Gavin says pining me with a look.
I gape at him for a moment, shocked stupid.
Am I in love with Mia? I’m not sure. I know what I feel for her is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I know that the thought of not talking to her or seeing her for more than a twenty-four-hour period has panic racing though me.
Holy shit. It smacks me upside the head. I sink down into the seat next to me.
“Now he’s finally getting it,” Liam mutters.
“Welcome to the party bro, it’s about time you got here,” Gavin says wandering over to the refrigerator.
Looking around at my brothers, it hits me that they already figured it out before I did.
“How long have you all known?”
“Years now. It became glaringly obvious when we all went on that cruise a few years back to celebrate mom and dad’s wedding anniversary and Mia couldn’t make it. You spent more time talking and texting her than you spent doing anything else. Hell, Ava even picked up on it the first time she saw you two together,” Liam says.
My eyes shift to Ava and she smiles sheepishly.
“It was all in the way you looked at her and she looked at you like you were the only two people in the room. It was sweet,” she says shrugging.
My throat closes with emotion.
How she looked at you.
Is it possible that Mia feels the same way and I’ve just been too blind too see it? My phone beeps with a message and I pull it out of my pocket. My heart stops then starts again when I see who the text message is from. Mia.
MIA: Hey, can you come over to my apartment? We need to talk.
I’m up and heading towards the door before I’ve even finished the sentence.
“Don’t fuck it up,” Gavin yells at my retreating back.
I throw up my middle finger in response. Their laughter follows me down the hallway.
Chapter Six
MIA
“I’m so sorry. It was a mistake. I never meant to put you in that position or risk ruining our friendship.” I repeat those words over and over to myself as I pace back and forth my living room.
Glancing at the clock, I see that it’s only been five minutes since I sent the text message to Levi and he responded.
Nerves, regret, and humiliation have been a living breathing thing inside of me over the past forty-eight hours since That Day, as I’ve been referring to it.
Once I left that café, I took an uber over to Imani’s place and spent one night there. The next day I came back to my apartment to lick my wounds. Imani tried to convince me that what happened between Levi and I was a good thing.
But I can’t even bring myself to think along those lines. She didn’t see the look on his face. The shock and disbelief were written all over him and that expression he wore is permanently burned into my mind.
After I got over the initial panic, I started to think rationally about the situation. The first thing I need to do is apologize, chalk it up to a mistake. Once I’ve apologized, I’ll act as though it never happened and hope that we can go back to the way our friendship was before That Day.
I know my feelings for him haven’t gone anywhere. If anything, they’ve gotten stronger. But I can’t risk not having him in my life.
I’d rather have Levi as my best friend than no Levi at all. Imani thinks that I should start going on a few dates with other men and I begrudgingly agreed. If I’m going to have any hopes of getting over him, then I have to at least try to go out with somebody else. Something I hadn’t even thought about until she brought it up.
I repeat my prepared speech in my head a few more times before there’s a knock on my door.
I pause my pacing and my heart immediately starts racing in my chest. My palms get sweaty and a flush of heat comes over my skin.
The knocking persists.
“You can do this Mia,” I mutter to myself as I rush to the door.
The deep breath I was about to take gets stuck in my throat once I pull the door open and get my first look at Levi in two days.
He’s dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt that stretches across his biceps and molds to his broad shoulders. His hair is in a messy disarray like he’s been running his hands repeatedly through it, something he only does when he’s stressed.
But when I look up into his eyes, it’s like a punch to the gut.
All the words I’d just spent an hour practicing, get stuck in my throat when I look into his eyes.
It’s an expression I’ve never seen before, the intensity emanating from him has me taking a step back. He follows me in and shuts the door behind him without a word. He keeps coming forward until my back is up against the wall next to the door.
He big body crowds me and his face is inches from mine. His mouth is centimeters from my own. His scent surrounds me and from this close I can see darker flecks of green in his eyes.
“W-what are you do--.” I don’t even finish the sentence before his lips our on mine.
A gasp leaves me, and my hands instinctively go to his shoulder. My mouth opens slightly in shock and he takes that opportunity to stroke his tongue into my mouth and I just melt. A flush of desire spreads quickly
