Page 107 of Cherry Picking

“Are you?” I prop myself up on an elbow. “Or is this just how I get you now? In fragments, from strangers.”

“It shouldn’t be.” He takes a slow, steadying breath. “I went to Ophelia’s, then to see Zig, then to my father’s house. And I did all of it without calling you first. I just—I wanted you to meet me on the other side of it.” He’s focused on my knee now, avoiding my eyes. “In my head, I was going to get every piece of it handled, and then I’d come to you all finished. Cleaned up. So you wouldn’t have to see any of the messy middle.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s not fair to anyone.”

“That’s exactly what my dad said. He told me to knock it off.” Briggs looks at his hands. “You’re the best part of my day, Evie. The only thing that’s actually made me feel human lately is being near you. I didn’t think I deserved to feel better, so I stayed away on purpose.”

My heart turns over, but I quickly shove the feeling down somewhere safe. “So your father had to give you a lecture on how not to ghost me?”

“I guess. In a way.”

“That’s truly humiliating for you, Maxwell.”

He huffs a rough, humorless laugh. “It is.”

I sit up fully, dragging my legs back to my side of the cushions because I can’t manage this conversation while his hands are still on my skin.

“You want to know what I did today?” My voice is scaling up into a register I don’t love. “I sat in my car outside Sutton’s, and I thought about driving to Murphy’s house. I wanted to walk in and stand in that living room and force you to look at me. And I didn’t, because I decided you two needed that space to yourselves, and I wasn’t going to be the girl who interrupted it.”

“Evie—”

“I gave you the entire day,” I cut in. “I sat on it. I went and got drunk with Hazel just so I wouldn’t call you. I checked my phone forty times, and you didn’t reach out once. Not until you decided to show up on my doorstep at midnight because your dad told you to.”

“That’s not—” He cuts himself off. “Okay. That’s a fair hit.”

“And why on earth did you go to Ophelia’s this morning?”

“After the article dropped, I was breaking down and pushing you away. I needed to hear her side of things so I could finally stop banging my head on the version I made up. And I’m glad I did, because there was a lot I didn’t know. A lot I still need to explain to you.”

I sniff. “Like what?”

“It’s, uh, I think it’s something we should talk about later. Once you sober up.”

Something in me goes cold. He’s doing it right now, deciding what I get and when I get it, while he’s standing in my living room apologizing for exactly that.

“The headlines are saying you’re an unrestricted free agent. Is that something we should wait to talk about?”

He flinches. “. . . no.”

“I found that out from a tabloid, too.” I’m shaking my head. “Your contract is up in April, which I suppose I could have googled, but I didn’t think I needed to. You could be anywhere by this summer. And you knew that the entire time I was in Charlotte, holding your hand and meeting your friends and sitting in your kitchen. You let me stand around in a life you might be walking out of.”

“That isn’t—”

“Was I supposed to just figure it out? Was that the plan?” I’m on my feet now, a mistake, and I have to catch the back of the couch to keep from wobbling. “You bought me a cortado at your favorite cafe. You circled Valentine’s Day on your calendar. And you never once said, hey, by the way, this might all be over in ten weeks.”

“Because I didn’t know what I wanted yet.”

“No, you did.” My voice cracks, and I hate the sound of it. “You just wanted the version where nobody has to know a thing until you’ve made a decision. That’s what you do, Briggs. Isn’t it? Is that why Ophelia—”

I stop myself, but not quickly enough.

“Say it,” he urges, lips pressed into a thin line.

“No.”

“Evie. Say the rest of it.”

I’m drunk, and my chest feels hollow, so it comes out in one piece, whole and terrible.