Tyler's POV
I scramble off her like she's made of fire.
The sound of her crying—raw, ugly, completely uncontrolled—hits me harder than any slap she's landed tonight. I stand at the edge of the bed, chest heaving, blood still dripping down my face, and I don't know what the fuck to do.
She curls onto her side, knees pulled to her chest, shoulders shaking with sobs that seem to tear themselves from somewhere deep inside her.
The sounds she's making—broken, gasping, desperate—they don't match the girl who threw a crystal vase at my head five minutes ago.
That girl was fire and steel and sharp edges. This girl is... small.
Fuck.
I run a hand through my hair, wincing when my fingers brush the cut above my eyebrow. The sting grounds me, reminds me that I'm standing here like an idiot while she cries.
My end goal was to fuck her, not fuck her up.
I wanted to break through that wall she keeps around herself, wanted to see what lived underneath all that quiet defiance.
I thought she was tough. Thought she could take whatever I threw at her because that's what she showed me. Slaps and shoves and eyes blazing with a fury that matched my own.
I didn't see the grief, the exhaustion, the fragility hiding beneath the fight.
Now I see a tiny girl who buried her parents just weeks ago and has been drowning ever since. And I'm the asshole who held her head underwater because I was too obsessed with my own drama to notice she couldn't breathe.
Apologize, says a voice in my head that sounds annoyingly like Derek. Just say you're sorry, you absolute piece of shit.
The words won't come.
They stick in my throat like broken glass, sharp and impossible to swallow. I've never been good at this—at softness, at kindness, at admitting when I've gone too far. My mother used to say I had my father's pride, and she didn't mean it as a compliment.
So instead of apologizing, I do the only thing I can think of.
I walk to the bathroom.
The faucet runs cold over my hands. I grab a glass from the counter—crystal, because everything in this goddamn house is crystal—and fill it. The water sloshes as I carry it back to the bedroom, and I realize my hands are shaking.
Tyler McKinney, F1 driver, future champion, absolutely useless in the face of a crying woman.
She's quieter now, her sobs fading into hiccups and ragged breaths. When I crouch beside the bed, glass extended like some kind of pathetic peace offering, her eyes fly open.
Fear is what I see first. Raw, animal fear, like she expects me to—
To what? Hit her? Force her?
The realization of what she thinks I might do makes my stomach turn.
"Water," I say, my voice coming out rougher than intended. "Drink."
She stares at me for a long moment, tears still streaming down her temples, her whole body tense with the expectation of violence.
Then, slowly, she uncurls enough to take the glass.
Her fingers brush mine. The contact sends electricity through my nerve endings, and I hate myself for noticing, for wanting, for being incapable of turning off the part of my brain that catalogs every detail of her even now.
She drinks. Small sips at first, then longer ones, her throat working as she swallows. When the glass is empty, she sets it on the nightstand and wipes her face with the back of her hand.
The silence stretches between us, thick and unbearable.
"I'm sorry."
The words come from her, not me, and they land like a punch to the sternum.
"I shouldn't have said those things about your mother," she continues, her voice hoarse from crying. "That was cruel. I was trying to hurt you, and I—" She swallows hard. "I'm sorry."
She's apologizing to me.
After everything I said, she's the one saying sorry. The words fell from her lips like they cost her nothing, easy and genuine and completely beyond my ability to reciprocate.
I am, officially, the worst person I know.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, keeping distance between us, not trusting myself to get closer. The mattress dips under my weight, and I stare at the wall because I can't look at her face right now.
"You've got mascara everywhere," I say finally, because apparently sarcasm is all I have left. "You look like a raccoon that lost a bar fight."
A sound escapes her—half sob, half laugh—and the unexpected humor of it loosens something in my chest.
"You've got blood everywhere," she shoots back, her voice still watery but steadier now. "You look like you lost a fight with a blender."
"The blender had help." I turn my head, meeting her eyes. "Some psychopath threw a vase at it."
She laughs again, and it transforms her face—softens the tear-stained cheeks, brightens the red-rimmed eyes, makes her look alive and devastatingly beautiful.
God, I'm fucked.
A strand of auburn hair clings to her wet cheek. Before I can think better of it, my hand reaches out and brushes it away, tucking it behind her ear.
Her breath catches. My fingers linger against her temple, feeling the rapid flutter of her pulse beneath the delicate skin.
"You're kind of pretty when you're not trying to kill me," I murmur.
"You're kind of tolerable when you're not being a monster."
"Don't get used to it."
She rolls her eyes and moves to stand, probably planning to retreat to her room and lock the door and never speak to me again. But my hand catches her wrist—gentle this time—and I pull.
She tumbles onto my lap with a small gasp.
For a moment, neither of us moves. She's sitting sideways across my thighs, one hand braced against my chest, her face inches from mine.
I can see every individual eyelash, every freckle scattered across her nose, the exact moment her pupils dilate as she realizes how close we are.
"Tyler—"
"Shut up."
I kiss her.
Fuck gently. Fuck carefully. I kiss her like I've been wanting to since the first moment I saw her on that patio. My hand fists in her hair, angling her head back, and I swallow the moan that escapes her throat.
She tastes like salt and water. Her fingers curl into my shirt, pulling me closer, and when her tongue slides against mine, I lose whatever remained of my rational thought.
Yes. Finally. This.
I pull back just enough to breathe, my forehead resting against hers. Her lips are swollen from my mouth, her eyes hazy with want, her chest heaving against mine.
"See?" I can't help the smirk that curves my lips. "Told you that you'd beg for it eventually. Didn't even take that long."
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them—reflex, defense mechanism, the armor I've worn so long I don't know how to take it off.
Her expression shutters.
The warmth drains from her eyes, replaced by something cold and distant that makes my stomach drop. She pushes off my lap, stands on shaky legs, and walks toward the door without a word.
"Ellie—"
She doesn't turn around. Doesn't acknowledge that I've spoken. Her hand finds the lock, twists it open, and then she's gone—the door clicking shut behind her.
I fall backward onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling, the ghost of her kiss still burning on my lips.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
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