Page 118 of End Game

She swallows. Hesitation is written across her face.

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you. Because you aren’t ready to process how I feel about you,” I admit. “Nothing about our friendship has to change. We can still—”

“Everything has changed, Barrett,” she says quietly. “Everything is different now.”

Chapter 36

Diana

Barrett has feelings for me.

What.

The.

Fuck.

I’m the mystery girl that Barrett’s been talking about nonstop for the last few weeks. The girl he’s been “obnoxiously pining” for. The girl he thinks isn’t interested in him.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I admit quietly, and his face falls.

“Okay.”

“I need some space.”

“Okay.”

I love you, I want to say.

Because I do love him. Maybe not in the way he wants me to, but I do, in my own way.

I swallow. “Since… since you were fourteen?”

Slowly, he nods. “You’re upset. I should have told you. Or maybe I shouldn’t have. I don’t know.”

“I had feelings for you back then,” I admit quietly. “When we were fifteen, sixteen… I would have given everything to hear you say it back then.”

“And now?”

I sigh. “And now, knowing the depth of your feelings…” I scrub a hand over my forehead. “I don’t have the emotional energy to devote to a relationship, and if something were to happen between you and me—”

“Which I’m not pressuring you for,” he adds quickly. “I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. That’s not fair. That’s on me.”

“I wouldn’t want to casually date you,” I tell him. “It would be serious.”

“Agreed,” he says nervously. “I’ve slept around. I’ve been with enough women to know what I do and don’t want. And what I don’t want is meaningless sex with someone whose last name I don’t even know. I want something real, something meaningful.”

“I don’t know that I can deal with serious right now. My dad…”

“I know.”

“He likes you.”

He smiles, for the first time in what feels like forever. “I know.”

“He wants us to get together.”

“He does?”