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“Would you have left without saying goodbye? Without letting me know?” His voice had become soft.

“I thought that… After Saturday night, you avoided me. I thought you wouldn’t want to have me around here anymore.”

“Why do you always expect the worst? I’m not such an asshole, either.” He didn’t sound reproachful, just surprised.

I raised my eyebrows.

“Okay, I can be an asshole. But… ” He paused and shook his head. Then he leaned back and rubbed his face.

“But what?” I frowned. “You stormed out of my room as if I’d tried to rape you.”

“You could never rape me, Bubbles.” He shook his head and grinned. “Anything you do to me would be fine.”

“You can’t say things like that and then insist on your stupid rules!” I exclaimed, frowning.

“I can do what I like. If I want to be suggestive, then I do it. If I want to go hiking with you, I do it. And if I want to kiss you,” he leaned in with one hand on either side of me, “then I will do that, too, dammit. They’remyrules.”

His nose was now only a few millimeters away from mine. I held my breath, but didn’t move back.

“And I decide who can kiss me, Kaden.” My voice was a bit throaty, but firm. “You can’t act like a cave man, using sexual favors to shut me up. That’s not how it works.”

For a split second, surprise flashed in his eyes. “I didn’t want to shut you up.”

“Yeah, right.”

He frowned. “I only wanted you to calm down. Your hysteria was freaking me out.”

I had to smile.

Kaden noticed it, relieved. Then his eyes wandered from my mouth back to my eyes. “Talk to me.”

“We are talking,” I retorted. My cheeks were growing hot, he was that close to me.

“Tell me what put that strong, positive-thinking young woman into such a panic. Come on, you like to talk. What’s stopping you now?”

My throat was dry as the desert. To avoid talking, I tried to take another bite of my pizza. But before I could, Kaden plucked it out of my hand and put it back on my plate.

“Allie.”

A shiver electrified my body. I couldn’t avoid his urgent gaze.

“What do you care?” I asked, barely audible.

Kaden tilted his head. “Don’t read too much into it. I just want to know what’s up with you.”

His insistent look told me loud and clear that I shouldn’t even bother trying to hide myself from him again, in whatever way I might’ve done.

“If it helps you to talk,” he murmured. “We’re kind of friends, aren’t we?”

I shrugged. “Kind of.”

“Okay! So friends talk to each other about stuff like this.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I couldn’t tell Kaden the real reason for my fear. I’d been silent for so long… It was as if I wasn’t able to tell the truth anymore.

My tongue felt heavy and my chest tight. I’d never told anyone before. Only mom knew the truth. And she’d forbade me from breathing a word about it. The longer I’d suppressed the truth, the higher the wall around my heart grew. Nothing and no one could penetrate it. And that included Kaden.

“I can’t,” I pushed out the words. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

Kaden sighed. He grabbed me firmly by my upper arms, and when he leaned back on the sofa, I had no choice but to move with him. My head landed on his shoulder, my body lay stretched out against his. I stiffened as I felt his grip around my hips, but then his other hand stroked my arm, up to my shoulder and down again, and I realized that he only wanted to hold me. I stopped fighting myself, and the tears came. All the words I couldn’t say ran silently from the corners of my eyes and fell on Kaden’s shirt, one tear after the next, until a huge wet spot appeared.

Kaden just held me tight. He didn’t say a word about my state, didn’t crack any jokes about me, didn’t pressure me to tell him more.

He was just there for me. And that was more than I’d ever expected from him.