Chapter 7

Declan

I closed my eyes.

"You and Victoria have been over for months," she continued. Her voice was careful in the way that meant she'd been building up to this. "I'm not asking for anything crazy. I just—I think we're good together."

I didn't say anything for a second. She took that as an opening.

"We have fun. You know we do. And I'm not going to pretend tonight didn't mean something to me, because it did, and I think—"

"Kendall."

"Don't do that."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You say my name like that when you're about to say something I don't want to hear."

I sat up. Ran a hand through my hair. "You know me. You've known me for two years. You know how this works."

"I know how you've decided it works."

"Same thing."

"It's not the same thing." She pushed up too, pulling her knees to her chest. "You just decided a long time ago that you don't do relationships and now you treat it like it's a fact of nature. Like gravity."

She wasn't entirely wrong. That was the irritating part.

"I'd be a terrible boyfriend," I said. "I'm at the rink by five-thirty. I travel half the season. My entire life is hockey and right now that's exactly how it needs to be. You deserve someone whose head is actually in it."

"Maybe I'd rather have half of you than none of you."

"You wouldn't. Trust me."

The silence that followed was the kind with weight to it.

Then Kendall got up. She found her low-rise jeans on the floor and stepped into them, pulled on her cami, shook her hair out. Every movement precise and controlled in the way that meant she was furious.

"Declan." She turned at the door. Her voice had gone flat. "You're an asshole. Don't text me."

The door closed.

I sat there for a moment. The water stain looked back at me. I didn't feel good about it—I didn't feel nothing, I wasn't that far gone—but I also hadn't lied to her, and lying would have been worse.

I showered. Let the water run hot until the tension in my shoulders started to unwind. By the time I came back downstairs the party had thinned out into its second-wind crowd—the people who were either too drunk to leave or too invested in whatever was happening on the couch to care.

Blake was in the corner with his arm around a girl with light brown hair, both of them at the loose, easy angle of people who'd had exactly enough to drink. I grabbed a water from the cooler and walked over.

"You know that girl?" I said. "The one tonight. Brown hair, black cami, beige skirt."

Blake squinted. "Bro, there were like forty girls in black camis tonight. You're going to have to be more specific."

"Mini skirt. Came up to about here." I gestured. "She went upstairs."

"Oh, shit." He sat up a little. "That's Leah's friend."

The girl under his arm lifted her head. She had bright eyes and the particular sharpness of someone who was drunk but still processing faster than she was letting on. "That's my roommate. Elara Bennett." She looked at me. "Did something happen?"

"She walked in on me and Kendall."

A beat of silence.

Then Blake made a sound that was somewhere between a wince and a laugh. "Oh, bro. Tell me you at least stopped."

"I didn't stop."

"Declan."

"I mean, I didn't stop immediately."

"You didn't—" Blake put his face in his hand. "You kept going. You looked a girl in the eye while you were balls deep in someone else and you just kept going."

"I acknowledged the situation."

"That is not better!"

The girl—Leah, apparently—was staring at me with an expression I could only describe as professionally appalled. "That's going to mess her up," she said. "Elara doesn't—she's not great with stuff like that. With guys and—" She stopped. "You might actually owe her an apology."

"An apology."

"Yeah. A real one. Not a 'hey my bad' in a hallway."

I thought about dark eyes in a doorway. The hand pressed over her mouth. The way she'd said sorry—like she was the one who'd done something wrong.

"Yeah," I said. "Okay."

Blake patted my shoulder with the solemnity of a man delivering bad news. "You could also just pretend it never happened. You've broken, what, a few hundred hearts at this point? One more traumatized witness isn't going to change your stats."

"Helpful, Blake."

"I try."

Leah was still watching me. "Her name's Elara," she said again. Like she wanted to make sure it stuck.

It stuck.