“Go fuck yourself!” she shouts, whipping around and stomping down the hallway to her room.

I follow close behind. “I don’t have to, sweetheart.” She stops at her door and I pull my phone from my pocket, tapping the screen furiously. “I’ve just texted a woman who knows how to keep her mouth shut and doesn’t have a flexing bicep where her pussy should be!”

Winter’s chest heaves with ragged breaths, her jaw tightening over and over. Her lips part, then she lifts her chin, holding onto her dignity when I’m sure what she really wants to do is pull the grenade pin with her teeth and roll it to my feet.

“You’re just a hard-on in an expensive suit. Nothing more, nothing less. You’re hollow, Aleck. You can say mean things about me and diminish what we’ve shared just so you can keep burning through hearts who don’t deserve it, but I won’t let you reduce me to a conquest. I heard what you said about me to Hayden. It was hurtful. You may not have a heart or feelings that you answer to, but I do. And you know what? I like that about myself. I’d never want to be empty like you. I won’t make trouble for you, just stay away from me.”

With that, she steps into her room and slams the door. The words she’s said hover around me like a cloud of poison.

She heard what I said to Hayden…

What I said to Hayden…

My eyebrows dip in confusion. What I said… Shit!

What I fucking said to Hayden! Motherfucker.

I said I stupidly slept with her and would be dodging her until I leave. I brushed us off and made her out to be some cheap hole I regret screwing. Which, annoyingly, couldn’t be further from the truth. That must have gutted her to hear. For the first time since I was a child, my heart aches with an excruciating feeling: Shame.

I step up to her door and try the handle. It’s locked, of course.

“Winter…” All the edge and vindictiveness in my tone has gone. “Winter, please open the door so we can talk. I won’t yell at you. I just… I need to see your face when I talk to you.”

“Go away, Aleck!” she yells through the door.

“No, Winter. I didn’t mean what I said to Hayden. You don’t understand, I said it because if he knew…” I pause, realizing I need to choose my next words wisely. If I admit to my feelings for her, everything changes. And maybe I should let us change. We’re only here for so long anyway, right? “If he knew how I feel about you, he would have made you a game. I didn’t want to bring attention to you like that.”

I step closer to the door, expecting to hear her shuffling inside, but I don’t.

Jesus. I don’t do this. I don’t speak to my actions, let alone give a fuck about them. Here I am speaking to this woman through her goddamn door, hoping she’ll believe my words enough to let me in.