He reaches behind his ear for the cigarette and jams it between his lips before pulling a lighter from his pocket.

I go on brokenly, “And I can’t watch another person I care about—”

He yanks the cigarette out of his mouth and yells in a cloud of smoke, “Then don’t!”

He storms up to me, tossing the lighter across the bar with a clang, and bumps his hard chest into mine. My next breath gets trapped somewhere in my throat, but I don’t dare budge. I don’t dare back down.

“Don’t care,” he grits out. “Don’t watch. Just go.”

We’re so close I can see the red blood vessels spiderwebbing across the whites of his eyes as they dart wildly between mine.

“You know it’s not that simple,” I say slowly, my voice dropping to a deep rumble.

He’s shaking his head, nose flaring inches from my mouth. “No, it’s actually very fucking simple. Because here’s the thing, Will. You knew exactly what you were getting into yesterday. I warned you and you didn’t want to hear it.” He pauses for one meaningful beat. “You knew how fucked in the head I am, and you still”—he pokes me in the chest, right above the bottle—“stuck around. You still don’t get it through your thick, stubborn head.”

A hard swallow forces its way down my throat.

He huffs, the blunt edge of his nail teasing along my collar, right where the fabric meets my skin. His eyes drop to follow, dark brows bunching together, as if he can’t be sure how it got there. “It’s like you like being my own personal punching bag,” he says, almost softly, dipping just the tip of his finger under my shirt. “It’s like you want me to hurt you.”

A chill skates up my spine, and I wish I could say it was from his touch.

Thick lashes flutter as he blinks up at my face. “Is that it? Do you want me to hurt you?”

I want you to love me.

The thought comes so sudden, so unbidden, how I don’t come right out and say it is a feat of restraint I didn’t know I was capable of.

His finger’s still pressed to my chest, and I can’t tell if he’s pushing or I’m leaning, but the pressure between us seems to be mounting with each passing second. It’s only a matter of time before it combusts. Before we combust.

“You won’t hurt me,” I murmur.

His eyes flare with something like surprise, something I can’t quite place, but before he can try and convince me otherwise, I grab his wrist. Holding the tip of his finger to my chest like it’s a loaded gun.

“You won’t.”