Page 212 of Sexting His Assistant

I shake my head. “No need for that.”

“I scared you,” she says.

“You were attacked,” I reason. “You don’t apologize to me for being hurt.”

She blinks, and more tears slip out.

This time I don’t brush them away immediately. I give her a second to be upset without managing it for her.

Then I add, “I should have walked you upstairs.”

“Luka,” she says.

“I know what you will say,” I say. “You asked me not to. I respected it. That does not make me feel better.”

“You did what I asked,” she says.

“Yes,” I say.

“That matters,” she says.

I look at her.

She’s lying in a hospital bed with a concussion, still trying to make me understand the boundary I nearly hated myself for respecting.

Something breaks open inside me then, quietly and without drama.

The words come up before I can stop them.

I love you.

They’re so close that my mouth almost forms them.

I love you, and I should have stayed. I love you, and I’m terrified of what that means for you. I love you, and if I say it now, while you’re pale and injured and afraid for your brother, I will be putting my need on top of your pain.

So I don’t say it.

I lean over instead and kiss her forehead.

Her eyes close.

I stay there for a moment, breathing her in, feeling the heat of her skin under my mouth, letting the words burn where only I can feel them.

When I pull back, she opens her eyes again.

She looks like she heard something anyway.

“Luka,” she says.

My phone vibrates on the side table.

I ignore it.

It vibrates again.

She glances toward it. “Answer.”

“No,” I say.