Page 54 of BounBound By Scars

Her lips twitched. She smile briefly. But it faded almost as fast as it came. “Kabir, I—can we talk?”

I held her gaze for a moment. Then gave a quiet nod. “Of course.”

But I didn’t move closer. I didn’t drop the gym bag. Because I already suspected where this was going.

Apologies. Maybe she was circling back to me, her other option.

And I couldn’t afford to bleed for her anymore.

“I miss us,” she said gently.

‘There’s no us’,she’d once said. It still burned.

“And I know things have been weird. But I never wanted you to think I kissed you out of curiosity or pity or whatever your brain convinced you.”

I smiled again, small and tired. “It’s okay, Lia.”

“It’s not okay,” she insisted.

I shook my head, looking down at the tiled floor for a beat before meeting her eyes again. “I just want us to go back to being friends. Like before. No awkwardness. No pressure. And… I won’t interfere with Sebastian.”

Because I couldn’t keep holding out hope.

Because I couldn’t keep being a placeholder.

Because I wouldn’t survive being her option.

“Kabir, I think we should talk,” she urged, her voice slightly panicked. “Really talk. Not here, not while you’re running off somewhere.”

“The wedding’s this weekend,” I replied gently, avoiding her gaze. “You’ve got speeches to write, fittings to do, your Maid of Honor duties. It’s a lot. Let’s just… get through that. We’ll talk after.”

She frowned. “Kabir—”

“Please,” I said, more quietly than I meant to. “After.”

I saw it then—the flicker in her expression. Like she was realizing something too. Maybe that I had already made peace with whatever this was. Or that I was trying to.

I adjusted the gym bag on my shoulder and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek. “I’ll see you later, Lia.”

Then I walked away.

Every step heavier than the last. Trying to summon the will to be her friend. To be the thing she’d still let me be.

Even if my heart had already handed itself over—long, long ago.

FOURTEEN

Kabir

Zarek was spotting me as I did my last set of shoulder presses. Surprisingly, Sebastian had joined us today, doing curls in the mirror. Logan was off somewhere with his physiotherapist.

“Last one,” Zarek said, voice flat.

I grunted through the rep, dropped the dumbbells, and sat up with a sigh. “You ever smile during these or is that too emotionally expressive for you?”

Zarek gave me the barest twitch of an eyebrow. “Focus on your form, Cipher.”

Cipher.