The bastard remained mute. I’d just spewed stuff at him I didn’t even believe to get a reaction from him, but he merely stood there, a complete freaking stone with zero emotion.

I sniffed, unable to believe him. Frustrated, pissed, and heartbroken, I spun away and stormed down the apartment hall.

I made it around the corner and into the stairwell before I slid down onto the top step and bawled, burrowing my face into my hands as the misery consumed me.

The Knox I’d known would’ve found me. He wouldn’t have been able to handle my tears. He would’ve sat beside me, and talked to me, and hugged me until everything was okay again.

But the stranger I’d just walked away from stayed away.

So I cried even harder because it was finally hitting me that the boy I’d once loved was truly, horribly gone.

I hated the days she came late. Actually, I hated it when she couldn’t show at all. But those didn’t happen very often. Usually, her family paid her as much attention as my family paid me, and she could come out into the woods without anyone knowing or caring.

But I always stressed through every hour she didn’t show. What if she was hurt, or her family had found out, or she’d changed her mind and decided sneaking around with me wasn’t worth it after all? Then I got to thinking that it might be best if she did give up on me, because I started to imagine the future, and it didn’t just have me in it. I had to think about her. And a future with her in it looked sad, because I had no idea how to take care of her.

Before, the idea of just being a drifter and picking up any spare job I found would’ve been fine. Now, though, now I needed something secure, something permanent, something good enough to take care of both of us if I had to. No way in hell was I going to turn out like my dad and sponge off my woman, letting her break her back to bring in all the money and raise all the kids. I was going to be a man City could be proud to call hers.

Which only freaked me out more, because I had no idea how to become that person.

When I heard footsteps coming, jerking me from my panic, I jumped up, relieved. The dock swayed under me as I loped down the ramp to meet her on the shore.

“Hey.” I grinned as soon as she cleared the trees in her sandals and shorts and short-sleeve shirt. Her hair was bound up in a ponytail today, but I knew I could have it down and in my hands before the afternoon was over.

“Hey,” she said back, though her voice sounded distracted and her gaze seemed elsewhere. When she hugged herself, I frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

She was shaken. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her this upset before, like scared and troubled upset.

I took her shoulders in my hands. She tried to smile, but her lips trembled. Her hands shook slightly as she gripped my forearms and stepped up onto her toes to kiss me.

But I pulled back. “City?” Maybe her brother Max had seen us together.

It’d only been the night before that we’d listened in on him and Mercedes giving secret relationships such a bad name. Maybe he’d been too distracted to say anything then, but today he had. Maybe... I don’t know.

I’d been anxious all day, still worried that City might turn around and decide not to forgive me for the things I’d said to her. I continued to feel awful about it, and I certainly hadn’t forgiven myself. That’s why I’d been so impatient to see her again today, for reassurance that we were okay.

“It’s nothing,” she said, shaking her head as she sent me another fake smile.

“Don’t lie to me. Something has you rattled.”

She sighed as if disgusted by my persistence, but then she closed her eyes and dove at me, burrowing into my chest.

“It’s stupid,” she mumbled.

“I don’t care if it’s the most idiotic thing in the world. It’s bothering you, and I want to know what’s going on.” I scooped her up into my arms and began to carry her.

Tightening her arms around my neck, she clung to me with a gasp. “Where’re we going?”

“I’m taking you to the tree. That seems to be where we talk best...and make out less.”

She grinned, and her eyes lit with amusement. “I seem to remember one very steamy kiss at that tree.”

I snorted. “I said make out less, not at all. You really think I’m going to let you go today without getting my tongue down your throat at least once?”

“My, my, Knox Parker. You certainly do have a way with words.”

“I’m a teenage boy, remember. Sex might not be the most important thing I want from you, but oh, it’s always on the dream list.”