Page 93 of Always You (A Lilac Bay Novel)
“You know what, Andrew, it’s none of your business.” I turned to go, desperate to get out of there, to forget about this entire night, but his words froze me in place.
“You’re such a coward, Riley.”
I spun to face him, more furious with him than I had ever been in my life.
“I’ma coward? Me?”
“Yeah. You. You’re pissed that you saw me with Jill and you can’t even think about why that bothers you so much.”
I took a step towards him, jabbing my finger into his chest. “And what about you, Andrew? You want to talk about being a coward?” He was breathing fast, clearly every bit as angry as I was, but I didn’t care. “Why didn’t you want me with Chase?”
“I told you—”
“Don’t give me that crap that he might hurt me. Guess what, Andrew? It’s a big bad world, and sometimes people get hurt. But that doesn’t give you the right to tell me not to date someone. So why did you care, huh?”
He just glared at me, his chest raising and falling. That look was back in his eyes, the one I had seen after we kissed. The look that I couldn’t read.
“Nothing to say? Who’s the coward now?”
He took another step towards me, close enough now to see the darker flecks in his eyes, to see how red his cheeks were with anger. Suddenly, I didn’t even know what we were fighting about anymore. But whatever it was between us, whatever this anger was that was sparking in the air between our two bodies—it scared me.
“Should we have a discussion on fear, Riley?” he snarled. “Why are you even here?”
“I told you, I was looking for Jenny.”
“Not at Cora’s,” he said impatiently. “Why are you on Lilac Bay? You gave up all of your dreams to come back here. You used your sister and your mom as an excuse so that you didn’t have to go out and try.” His lip curled in derision. “The most competitive girl on Lilac Bay. Yeah, right. More like someone so afraid to fail she won’t even try.”
“You asshole,” I breathed. I felt like someone had slapped me—my skin was literally tingling. “Howdareyou. You want to talk about someone afraid to try? You just love your job, don’t you, Andrew? You love working in the mayor’s office and playing ball once a week and fishing with your brother. The perfect life. Just so long as no one ever challenges you, right? So long as no one expects anything from you. Yeah, you’re so happy. What a fucking joke.”
“Iamhappy here, Riley. Just because it’s not the life you want—”
“Oh, don’t put this on me. Your lack of ambition has nothing to do with me.”
“My lack of ambition? I’m not the one who could have whatever the hell I wanted. That’s you.” He shook his head, somehow looking even more angry than he had before. “You could be anything. You coulddoanything. Have anything you want. So what are you doing, Riley?” He took another step towards me, the tips of his toes actually touching mine, and looked down at me, his eyes flashing, chest heaving. I wanted to back away, wanted to run. This was all too intense, whatever it was in his eyes. It was too intense and too overwhelming and I didn’t understand it.
“What about you?” I whispered, my voice strangely ragged. “You think you can’t have what you want? You think you can’t have more?”
For a second I thought he might touch me. His hands actually clenched at his side, like he was forcing them to stay still. And then he took a step back, and then another, breaking whatever spell had seemed to come over us in the last few minutes. When he spoke again, the anger in his voice was muted, replaced by something that sounded a lot like disappointment.
“The only thing I want—the only thing I’ve ever wanted— is out of my reach,” he muttered. “So don’t tell me I can have more, Riley. Because you have no idea.”
I wanted to cry in that moment, wanted to burst into tears and pull him into my arms—and I didn’t even know why. There was just something so sad about the way he was looking at me.
“Andrew,” I said, reaching out a hand to him, but he was turning away, no longer looking at me, striding back towards the back door.
“Wait!”
“Have a good night, Riley.”
And then he was gone.
