Frigid

My heart tumbled through my chest. “I never said that I loved him.”

Her eyes rolled. “Okay. Stop the bullshit. Like I said, it’s been obvious since I’ve known you that you were in love with him. Listening to you tell me about what happened, I can hear it in your voice. Answer the question.”

I was pi

“Okay,” I said. “I still love him.” Once those words came out, I expected balloons and glitter to fall from the ceiling or something. Of course, that didn’t happen. “I’m in love with him.”

Andrea nodded slowly. “Then what do you want, Sydney?”

I dumped the half-eaten bread on my plate. “I don’t know. Like, I guess I thought he’d try to repair the friendship or something.”

“But you don’t want just a friendship.”

“No.”

Her brow rose. “But you don’t want a relationship?”

I opened my mouth.

Andrea leaned forward. “I get that you’re mad, and trust me, you have every right. Kyler has spent how long being the universal bicycle that had no training wheels? And he has a lot to make up for, because his actions hurt you. And I’m not saying you even have to forgive him. Honestly, I’d totally understand if you didn’t. Guys suck, Kyler among them, but…” She tapped her fingers. “But if you are in love with him, and not forgiving him hurts more than forgiving him does, Syd, and he wants to make it up to you, you’d be a fool to walk away from that.”

Knots formed in my belly as I stared at my friend. Not forgiving Kyler would hurt worse in the end, even if we only remained friends. Holding on to the anger would create nothing but bitterness. But I also didn’t want to be the person who gave so much of herself to someone who didn’t deserve it and ended up never being whole again.

I sighed, unsure of what to do or say. “I don’t know, Andrea. Maybe after some time passes, things will go back to normal.” I felt stronger for saying that. Hopeful. Maybe we could move past this, eventually. That seemed more likely than Kyler professing his undying love for me. “I guess we’ll just see.”

“You’re right. We will see.”

I raised a brow at her.

Andrea leaned back, dropping her hands on her legs. “All right, well, don’t hate me.”

Suspicion blossomed and spread like a weed through my mind. “Why would I hate you?”

A sheepish look crept into her expression.

“Andrea.”

She bit down on her lip and cringed. “I sort of invited guests to our di

My stomach roiled. “What?”

“Well, I sort of told Ta

All I could do for several seconds was stare at her while part of me started doing squealing jumping jacks and the other part wanted to get up and run for the door. “You didn’t.”

“Ah…”

“Andrea!” I whispered.

She smiled tentatively. “I sort of texted them where we were, and they should be here any minute.”

Chapter 22

Kyler

“This is probably the worst idea you’ve had in a long time.” I killed the engine and sat back, clenching the keys in my hand until the jagged edges cut into my palm. “Seriously.”

Ta

Leaning my head back against the headrest, I groaned. “It still feels like someone is slamming an ice pick into my temples.”

“You were pretty drunk,” Ta

I rubbed my palm along my chin, frowning at the growth of stumble there. I hadn’t shaved since the first night at Snowshoe. “Yeah, you’d think that, since Syd doesn’t hate your guts.”

Ta

“Oh, it’s possible. Trust me.”

“Look, I don’t know what really went down between you two, but something did. It’s not the end of the world.” Ta

I shot him a dirty look, but I climbed out. As I joined him on the other side, I asked the question I’d already asked a dozen times. “She’s knows I’m going to be here, right?”

“Yep.” Ta

“What?” I stopped in the middle of the aisle, nearly causing a waiter to slam into me. I glared at Ta

Ta

Easy for him to say “chill out,” but I felt like I was walking in front of a firing squad. So many times since Syd left Snowshoe, I’d fought the urge to call her. I wanted nothing more than to hear her voice and to see her. And yeah, my fucking stupid-ass heart was bouncing all over the place, but Syd had made herself pretty damn clear.

“You’re a bastard,” I grumbled, ru

I saw Andrea before I saw Syd, and my heart pounded like I’d run up and down the quad, and I was sweating like a whore in church on Sunday. Ta

The bastard took the seat next to Andrea, who had the biggest, fakest smile known to man on her face. Of course, I wanted to sit next to Sydney. I also wanted to touch her, hold her close, and kiss her. There were other things that I wanted to do to her, things that kept me up late at night in a drunken stupor with my hand between my legs.

But I was also sure she might punch me in the balls.

Needing to pull it together, I told myself that the best thing to do was to act normal. With that in mind, I stepped beside the table and looked at Syd.

A heartbeat passed and she looked up, large blue eyes fixed right on me, and it was like seeing Jesus. Okay. Maybe not seeing Jesus, but it was definitely like being socked in the chest and hearing angels harking.

God. Damn. She was beautiful. Wasn’t that I had forgotten that, but after things ending so fucked-up between us, it felt like years instead of days since I’d seen her. Those eyes…they were astonishingly blue and clear. Stu

Everyone was staring at me.

Clearing my throat, I forced myself to sit down and placed my hands on the table. I glanced at Syd. “Hey.”

Her face was blood-red. No one blushed like she did. “Hey.”

Across from me, Ta

Wow, this was awkward as hell. I needed to leave.