Page 21 of Unveil

I swallow. “Ozias, I?—”

“No, me first, please,” he interrupts.

My “Okay” deflates out of me on a sigh.

This better not be like the movies where I one hundred percent wish I’d gone first.

“I know you want to leave New Orleans, but my cousins are starting their own business down here and asked me to join. My family… they need the money. And there are people I care about that rely on me to work with my cousins. So, I figured after our honeymoon you’ll have the travel bug outta you, and we can set up roots here? My grandmomma would love that…”

Yup. Ione thousand percentwish I’d gone first.

I zone out. I can’t help it when I’m now the star in the movie I dreaded watching.

But the worst clichés are the storylines where the girl just suffers in silence.

So… I don’t.

“Icantdothis!” I blurt.

“What?” he asks.

I swallow. “I can’t do this.”

His shoulders sag.

Oh God, did I hurt his feelings?

“I mean, I just… Zy, before tonight, I didn’t even know you liked me this much. Let alone loved me.”

His face clouds. I follow the thick gulp down his throat. When he speaks, his voice is rough.

“You said yes, Luna.”

Okay, weird response.

I shift in my seat. “I did. But I couldn’t exactly say no in front of a whole auditorium, could I? And what’s with this proposal at all?”

Silence stretches between us until he slouches in his seat.

“Shit.” He tries to swipe a hand over his face, stopping at the white mask and snatching it off to tuck back into his jacket pocket with the black one. “I’ve fucked this up, haven’t I?”

I grimace, but don’t disagree.

He trills his lips in defeat and pulls out a pack of cigarettes from his inside jacket pocket. “Look, I need… I need some air.”

My nose wrinkles at the thought of him smelling like an ashtray when he gets back, but I keep my mouth shut. I must really have hurt his feelings. He only smokes when he’s stressed.

A glance at his phone makes him curse. “Fuck. Thirty minutes until your birthday.” He squeezes my crossed knee andstands. “I’ll be back before then. I just need to think. We’ll talk when I come back.”

I nod, because what else can I do? As platonically, boringly chivalrous as Zy’s been the past six months, it’s still been six months. I can give him twenty-nine minutes.

“Don’t worry.” He chuckles as he rounds my chair. “I’ll take my jacket off, so I won’t smell as much.”

He pats my shoulder in a way that screams brotherly. Then he’s gone.

My trapped breaths rush out of me so quickly I get lightheaded, like I’m no longer treading water but sinking to the bottom of a lake.

He wants to talk? What else is there to talk about? Unless Zy comes back a completely different person, I’m done.