Page 114 of Chasing Hope

Come on, Dove, look at me.

As if she heard my internal plea, Evie slowly lifts those pearly blue eyes to mine. The moment she does, she sucks in a hiss of air.

“Well?” I grind out.

A flash of that sass I adore so much enters her gaze. “Well what, Valenti?”

“Back to Valenti now, are we?”

“You’re always Valenti to me.”

I scoff. “Okay, I see how it is.”

“How what is?”

Frustration rushes through me so swiftly there’s no stopping the words that pour from my mouth. “You can’t do that to me, Evie. That’s fucking cruel.”

Her eyes widen into saucers. “What the fuck have I done? You told me to sit on your lap!”

“Not fuckinggrindon it and nearly kiss me! You know how I fucking feel about you. Youknow. We dance around it, sure, and I was okay with it—” I pause. “Actually, no, I fucking wasn’t, but you’ve never been cruel about it and teased me like this.”

Anger flashes across her features, her neck turning crimson. “I wasn’t teasing you, Valenti. And yes, you made it perfectly clear all those years agoexactlyhow you feel.”

My brows furrow before recognition hits. “You’re holding me to something I said when I was eighteen?”

She folds her arms across her chest. “Pretty impactful words, hard to forget.”

“You were drunk, Evie.”

“And?”

“And I wasn’t going to take advantage of you! You were sixteen!”

She snaps forward, getting right up in my space, her finger jabbing my chest. “Stop trying to act like a goddamn gentleman. I was all but throwing myself at you!”

“Because you were drunk!”

Her eyes are a swirling pit of flames, the ocean in them doing nothing to quench the fire. “And if I were sober, would you have gone there?” She holds up a hand, not letting me say a word despite her question. “Of course not. You willalwayschoose your friendship with Caleb over me.”

My head rears back as if she had slapped me. “You think that’s why I said no?”

“You told me that’s why!” she screams in my face.

“And you believed me?”

“Believed what? The words fromyourmouth?”

I bark out a huff of laughter, shaking my head.

She fucking believed me.

“I knew you were gullible sometimes, Dove, but this is just?—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” she snaps.

Taking a step forward, Evie is forced to tip her head back. I slowly lower myself so we’re at eye level, and my voice is as deep as death as I confess, “Every word I said that night was a lie.”

Chapter 33