Page 88 of The Fire

And my heart cracked right down the center.

I forced myself to nod. “Okay. Alright, then. Good to know. I’m gonna go… shower. I think.” I turned away, but Jamie stepped forward and grabbed my wrist.

“Parker.” His voice was wrecked. “I need to talk to you. Privately. To explain. I…”

“There’s nothing to explain, Jamie. Really.”

Okay, there were epic mountains of things I’d love for him to explain, but I didn’t think I could stand to hear any of it right then.

“I love you,” he repeated.

I nodded again. It was apparently possible to feel completely hollow and heavy as lead at the same time.Howinteresting.

“I love you too,” I said, smiling just a little. “A lot. Love’s never been our problem, though, has it? We spark like a flame to paper and always have. Trouble is, it takes more than a spark to build a fire and keep it going. We’re basically a pair of toddlers playing with matches. We keep hurting ourselves and each other. It’s better if I go.”

“Parks, please,” Jamie said. “Don’t leave like this.”

“Like this.” I smiled. “So close to what I need you to say, but so far.”

I turned and walked down the hall to our… no,Jamie’sroom. The bed looked so freakin' comfortable, still warm from our bodies and the closeness that we'd shared literalminutesago. I wanted so badly to just crawl back in there and pull the covers up.

Because ignoring shit had worked so well for me up until now.

Fuck the shower. I needed to get away. I grabbed my backpack from the closet and started randomly throwing in shirts and jeans—mine, Jamie’s, I didn’t even care, I just wanted to get some stuff together and leave the house before I lost my composure entirely.

I felt it when Jamie came into the room. The sadness and confusion were coming off him in waves and I got it. Isogot it. Being with him last night had started out like goodbye, but by the end, it felt like we’d reached a turning point. Figured that we’d managed to turn ourselves around a full three hundred and sixty degrees, so we were back at The End.

“Brian’s waiting for you,” I said. “Don’t be rude.”

“Brian can go fuck himself. Were you serious? Are you leaving?”

I turned and found him standing by the bed, watching me intently. The look on his face would have broken my heart if it weren’t already broken.

“Why should I stay, Jamie?”

He ran a hand over his mouth. “If you don’t know… I guess I don’t know either.”

“Yeah.” I slung my backpack over my shoulder. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

I pressed a kiss to his cheek and walked around him out the door. Jamie made no move to stop me.

* * *

* * *

“So you justleft?” Cal demanded. “Just grabbed your bag and flounced?”

“I did notflounce!” I informed him. “I walked. Slowly. Deliberately.Maturely.”

“You flounced,” Cal repeated, not a question this time.

“Babe.” Ash gave Cal a secret smile and put a hand on his upper back in a half-restraining, half-supportive, totally loving gesture that made me wanna stab someone.

I made a disgusted noise and reached for the bottle of whiskey in the center of their little dining table. My mug already contained more Irish than coffee, but it wasn’t enough.

I’d known from the minute I walked into the bakery this morning, not sure if I wanted to cry or get drunk or find a yurt someplace in Mongolia where I could be alone, that I’d picked the wrong place to turn for sympathy and commiseration. Sure, Cal and Ash had immediately taken me upstairs to their apartment, leaving Moira to run the bakery, and they’d plied me with caffeine and alcohol until I’d spewed the whole sorry story to them, but they’d also sat next to each other the whole time, and the aura ofcouplein the air was thicker than syrup.

Vomit.