Page 97 of Over the Limit

I hate that line. I wish I didn’t have it. But he’s right.

“Talk to me, Carmichael.”

My smile softens. There’s no other way to say it than to just say it. “I’m falling for you, Lachlan Evans.”

“Then you must be looking down where I’m on the floor because I already fell a damn long time ago.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Blair

“Blair.”

“Oliver? What . . . is everything okay?” I set down my coffee, shocked at hearing the sound of his voice.

“No. Yes.” He snorts. “Fuck if I know.”

“What does that mean?”

Silence weighs heavy on the line and my heart leaps into my throat. He’s still my Oliver Rossi and I know him well enough to know how much it took for him to make this call.

I glance at the clock. From my texts, Lach got to the track early today because of a meeting with his agent. Did something happen that I don’t know about? Contract renewal? Missed meeting? Why is Rossi calling me right now?

“I miss you. Like”—he sighs heavily—“talking to you. Joking with you. Just you.”

“I miss our friendship too.”

He barks out a laugh that’s laced with sarcasm. “Way to keep it in the friend zone.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say to that,” I say gently. Because I don’t.

“Nothing. Look, I don’t know why I called. I’ll go—”

“No. Please. Talk to me.” And I mean that. I still care about him. “Please?”

“Blair,” he says so quietly I almost don’t hear it. And there’s only one thing worse than hurting someone you love—hearing the hurt in the voice of that person. Because that means they know you hurt them too. That means they’re hurting.

“I’m here.”

“Everything is up in the air. I used to have two constants—you and my ride—and right now I don’t have the first and the second is unknown so it’s just . . . unsettling.”

“I’m still here. The ride will happen. You’re too talented for it not to. You—”

“Rossi,” a sleep-drugged feminine voice says coyly. “Come back to bed.”

Oh.

Whoa.

Okay.

Talk about putting things into perspective. For a man who swore I’d be crawling back to him like a lap dog, he just showed me exactly how much he respected me. Or rather disrespected me.

If any part of me thought he was pining for me or that the whole melancholy exchange at the patisserie a few weeks back was because he wanted me back, what I just heard demonstrates how wrong those thoughts were.

And worse, I question all the other times we’ve been on a break in the past. Is this what happened then? Did he use someone else to get over me? Or maybe not even get over me. Maybe it’s entitlement on his part that he’s always felt. An entitlement that said the rules we had only applied to me and not him.

I’m beginning to think that’s the case.