Through the Lens (Click Duet #1) (Bay Area Duet Series) by Persephone Autumn (best book club books .txt) 📕

Who does he think he is? He has no hold over me. He has no right to step in and assume the role he is taking right now. That role was extinguished when he stopped calling and writing. That role was extinguished the day he abandoned me.

He steps up to me, looks me square in the eyes, ignoring the fact that Jonas is less than two feet away. His eyes bounce back and forth between mine as he searches my face for answers. Answers to questions he has been dying to ask me, but is scared to know the truth. If he wants the truth, he will need to man up and ask what he is so desperate to know.

“Please,” I beg then close my eyes. As much as I would like to continue staring into his mesmerizing eyes, I can’t focus when I do. I continue speaking with my vision shielded. My voice just above a whisper. “Please stop doing this. You can’t do this. You can’t come back after thirteen years and act as if nothing has changed. Everything has changed.”

“Look at me,” he whispers.

I pinch my eyes tighter a moment before opening them and refocusing on his face. His face is inches from mine, and it is both exhilarating and unnerving. In my periphery, I notice everyone has moved away from us. Even Jonas.

The music morphs to one song then another, and we stand in silence. His eyes hypnotize me more with each passing beat and I swear he is figuring out a way to imprint his soul onto mine. Little does he know, he already has.

And when his finger traces the line of my jaw, I stop breathing. My eyes close and I wish on every star I have ever seen in the night sky that he will kiss me. But he doesn’t.

He leans forward, his stubbled cheek lightly scrapes against mine, and whispers in my ear. “Not everything has changed. At least not for me.”

He doesn’t pull away from me. His warm, cotton-covered chest presses against mine and I feel the acceleration of his breathing—on my chest and at my ear. Calloused fingers traipse, with the slightest pressure, from my upper bicep down to my elbow and follow the lines of my forearm until he reaches the tips of my fingers. His fingers leave a trail of sparks everywhere he touches me and I can’t ignore the swirl of energy erupting in my body.

“Gavin…” Fuck, I can’t breathe. Can’t think.

His breath is hot on my ear. “I won’t come out and say it, but my feelings for you… if anything, they’ve only gotten stronger.”

No. No, no, no, no. He can’t do this. Not now. Not after all this time.

My brain jumbles into a fog of confusion. How can this be happening? It took me years to get over him. Years. To accept that he was never coming back. To accept I would never have the same connection with another person like I did him. Accept that I would exist among my friends and become some old cat lady.

And then he waltzes back into town—although it was his job that brought him and no other reason—and acts as if it is okay to resume his role beside me. It is not so simple.

It sounds strange, but I mourned his loss. Literally mourned him. Laid in my bed for weeks, aside from school, and cried until the tears would no longer fall. I lost sleep over him, far too many hours to track. This went on for months. So many months it was almost a year before I stopped crying for him. But the crying wasn’t the end of it. It got replaced with well-disguised depression. Depression that still lingers to this day.

I won’t let myself be that girl again. He can’t do this. Make me fall in love with him again and then hop on a plane and fly back to the other coast. I won’t survive. Not again.

Coolness replaces the heat of his breath at my ear, but I know he hasn’t shifted far because his chest still rises and falls against mine. Not knowing what I will see, I take a chance and open my eyes and am met with the softest gaze. His grays spill into me. Plead with me. Implore me. Their silky silence calls to my heart and begs me to be something more. Begs me to be vulnerable for him again. And it hurts that I want to. So much.

“You can’t say that. Not to me.” The harsh scrape of my own words is an unfamiliar sound to my ears.

His eyes hold mine as he weaves his fingers between my own. “Why?”

“Because you can’t say things like that and then leave me,” I blurt, my body trembling. “The last time you left.” My voice breaks. “It took me a really long time to find myself again. And even after I did, there were still days I lapsed. If it happens again…”

His eyes darken as he studies me. If he moves two inches closer, his lips will be on mine. And as much as I long to know how it would feel again, I fear the consequences my heart will endure.

“I’m sorry how things happened last time. You know I had no control in that scenario. But now…” He takes my chin between his thumb and first finger. “You and I have all the control.”

“Do we?” I counter. “We live almost three thousand miles apart. How do we have control?”

The pad of his thumb brushes over my lower lip, causing me to close my eyes and suck in a breath. Blood whooshes loudly in my ear. My fingers tighten around his. Adrenaline parades throughout my body as flutters swarm beneath my sternum.

“What if we didn’t live so far apart?”

Red and yellow lights spin circles around us when my eyes bolt open. Hundreds of people hurl globes of plastic-resin along oil-slicked hardwood in the hopes of knocking over wooden pins. Music wails