Sam was saying something, but I couldn’t hear him over the pounding of my heart. Stacey was staring behind me, her brown eyes wide, and she was saying something, too, but none of her words were making sense.

My gaze shifted to the table—the table that wasn’t meant for only one person—and I thought about what Sam had said, referring to them instead of her. My breath felt funny in my chest as things began to click into place. Zayne hadn’t told me what he was doing today. Just that he had stuff to do.

Just like he’d had stuff to do the last time he’d made plans and, other than meeting with the apartment manager, he hadn’t told me what they were.

Slowly, I turned around.

In the mess of blurred faces and bodies, I saw him in the light blue shirt he’d left the apartment in, parting the crowd like some kind of hot Moses.

I took a step back, looking around this cute little ice cream shop, and I realized I knew this place. This was the ice cream parlor his father used to take him to, a tradition Zayne had kept with Layla as he grew older. This place was important to Zayne.

And he’d never brought me here.

This place was important to him, and yet he’d never shared it with me. But he’d gotten mad because I’d said a kiss meant more? A kiss could be anything or nothing, but sharing a piece of your past with someone meant a whole lot.

Even though a rational part of my mind recognized he didn’t have to take me anywhere nor did he have to tell me squat, the slicing pain in my chest felt all too real. I felt...betrayed. A burn built in the back of my throat and crawled up, stinging my eyes.

The urge to cut and run hit me hard and my muscles tensed to do just that. I wanted space—I needed distance to get control of what I was feeling as I watched Zayne’s steps slow. The look of surprise was hard to miss, and it was as if he’d felt me and couldn’t believe I was here.

I was intruding.

Heat swept across my cheeks as my stomach churned. Oh, man, what exactly was I intruding on? Zayne had claimed he and Stacey were just friends, and friends met up for ice cream all the time, but friends didn’t hide that.

My head was shorting out like there was a loose wire somewhere between my synapses. Under a coarse coating of embarrassment was...disappointment.

Not jealousy.

Not envy.

Disappointment.

Zayne inhaled, and something flickered over his face. “What are you doing here?”