Page 64 of Guarded Knight

He furrows his eyebrows, and I’d do anything to take away his pain. Make him smile again. “Hell, look at me. I’m one quarter away from a funeral playlist and I’m out there still catching frogs.”

He lets out a real laugh—short, sharp, but real—and he lets his head fall into his palm. “God, Lara.”

Making him laugh is precious. And I want to do it again but I know he needs more than that.

I don’t know what’s going on here but I don’t want to close the door. I don’t want to name it and define it. I just want tobe.

“G, it’s fine that you kissed me and it’s fine that we don’t do it again.” I shift my weight, trying to ease the sting in my chest. “Look at us, a decade older and we’re still a mess.”

A crooked smile plays on my lips, but the sad realization hits my heart.

He reaches across the table and taps my nose. “You’re a mess, all right, Firefly.”

My tension eases just a little. “Yeah? Well, we can be messes together. You don’t need to hide yourself from me any more than I should hide from you.”

His eyes soften. “I do care about you, Lara. All of it.”

“Maybe we can figure this out together,” I whisper. “Not just the mess out there but the mess in here, too.” I touch my chest, right where my heart’s beating way too fast.

He reaches for my hand, his thumb brushing my knuckles. “I’d like to try to be friends,” he says, voice rough. “You know me better than anyone.”

Seeing his raw vulnerability hits me with a sharp, sweet ache of wanting him all over again. It’s the same feeling I had when we were kids, like this is just so damn right.

Shit. He’s right. I am a mess. A pile of bricks and mortar because I let my walls come tumbling down and it’s probably going to hurt both of us to see each other again like this.

But I give him what he’s asked like so many times he’s given to me.

“Friends,” I whisper.

He smiles like it’s a promise, but I can already feel the lie splintering in my chest. Friends was never what this was, not when he’s the only one who’s ever made me feel free in a body that cages me.

But it’s what we’ll cling to until I go. And when I do, it’ll break us both like we were always something more.

17

The walkback from the bar starts out quiet. Lara keeps pace beside me, her head tilted slightly like she’s somewhere else. The streetlamps cast long shadows across the road, warm light catching in her hair—champagne and gold and temptation I have no business wanting. I can almost feel the heat of her arm brushing mine, the phantom memory of her lips from earlier still burning on my mouth.

She’s close enough that I could reach out and touch her.

But I don’t.

I won’t.

We just buried the hatchet. Drew the line.

Friends.A word that feels like a life sentence instead of a reprieve.

It’s the right call. The safe one.

But safety’s a joke. One brush of her shoulder, one laugh cutting through the dark, and I know I can’t do this, can’t be just her friend. Not now. Not ever.

But I sure as hell am not going back to nothing.

I glance over at her blonde hair dancing on the breeze.

But can I really never touch her again?

I’ll train myself not to reach.