Page 104 of Sit, Stay, Love
She shook her head. ‘Not like this.’ She got up and shoved him over, squeezing in beside him on the small cane couch. ‘Please don’t be like this, Herriot.’ She wrapped her fingers around his hand. ‘You’re my—’
‘Best friend. Yeah, I know.’
‘Don’t you want to be friends anymore?’ The lump in her throat had grown to the size of a golf ball, and she was having trouble swallowing.
Toby frowned at their hands. ‘I don’t know.’
Her heart plunged, dropping into her stomach with a thud that almost made her fold in two. ‘What?’ she asked in a tiny breathy voice.
He let go of her hand and ran a palm across his mouth. ‘I don’t know, Sera. I know I’m being a dick, but I can’t seem to stop, because I feel like I’m losing you and I don’t know…’ A desperate sigh escaped his lips.
She touched his cheek and gently turned his face towards her. ‘But you’re not losing me. You never, ever will. You’ll always be a part of my life, Herriot. You’ll always be my person.’
They gazed at each other a little too long and a little too lingering. Then, suddenly, his mouth was on hers.
Her breath left her lungs. Time slowed and for a second more than she should have, she returned his kiss, tasting his lips, her heart galloping in her chest and her stomach quivering with uncontrolled flutters. For a second longer than she should have, she pressed into him, her mouth moving against his as heat roared across her skin. Then her eyes snapped open and she shrank back, pushing him away with a shove of her palm. ‘What are you doing?’
He stared at her, panic growing in his eyes and pink flushing his cheeks. ‘I… I—’
‘You, youwhat?’
‘I don’t know.’ He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. ‘I don’t know what happened. I was angry. I didn’t mean—’
‘Toby—’
‘I lashed out.’
‘With your lips?’
‘It was a weird response, I grant you.’
She gaped at him. ‘You think?’
He squinted through the shroud of soft curls hanging about his mortified face. ‘I am so sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it, Ser, I promise. I didn’t. I’d never do anything to ruin what we have. It’ll never happen again.’
She gazed at him and shook her head.
‘I swear. Never again.’ He drew a cross over his heart with his finger.
She forced out a smile, her lips clamped tightly together. Why did his words make her feel so much worse? Why had a strange heaviness wrapped around her heart? Because their friendship was changing?
Or because Toby just promised to never kiss me again?
She crammed that thought to the back of her mind, patted his thigh, and said, ‘Let’s go see what’s happening with dinner, you weirdo.’
‘Takes one to know one.’
She laughed, because that’s what they did, even as all she wanted to do was to crawl away and cry.
Chapter Nineteen
The day was dark and oppressive. A warm wind whistled up the paddock and charcoal-coloured storm clouds gathered in the sky, heavy with rain.
Sera sipped her coffee as she stared at the clouds. They were an excellent reflection of her mood, and an even better one of the turmoil swirling within her.
She’d barely slept, tossing and turning as she relived every word spewed between her and Toby the night before. She was angry and confused and there was a knot in her stomach that wouldn’t budge.
I guess we can add accidentally kissing to our list of non-friend-like activities.
