He rubs his hand against his chin in thought. “Okay, I can go home if that’s what you really want.”

“It is.”

“But do you wanna know what I think?”

“Not even a little bit, no.”

“I’m gonna tell you anyway.” Figures. I take a deep breath and motion for him to get on with it. “I think you miss me as much as I miss you, and you don’t know what to do with that so you’re pushing me away. You’ve been running from me for the last thirteen years, but now you have to face whatever it was you couldn’t face back then, and it scares the shit out of you. But here’s the thing. If you’d just take your wall down one damn inch you’d realize that there isn’t a war I wouldn’t fight, dragon I wouldn’t slay, or mountain I wouldn’t climb for you. You don’t even have to ask. All you have to do is let me in.”

And therein lies the problem. Kai is too good for this world. I know he would do anything for me, and I would do anything for him. It’s why I’ve stayed away this long. It’s why I should’ve stayed away. Fuck. I can feel the tremble in my hands getting stronger, so I fold my arms across my chest. “I haven’t been running away from you.”

He scoffs. “Out of everything I said, that’s your takeaway?”

“It’s the only takeaway I care to address. Everything else is irrelevant.”

Anger flashes across his features. “Irrelevant?”

“Yes, Kai. Irrelevant. I didn’t ask for a fucking heart-to-heart. I am not your problem to fix. I don’t need you to slay any dragons for me, I don’t miss you, and I don’t need you. I—”

I don’t know when it happened, but sometime during my rant, Kai moved. And before I know it, his lips are crashing down on mine.

They’re as soft and intoxicating as I remember. His kiss is like that first shot of liquor after a hard day at work. It’s a shock to the system, but then the liquid trickles down your throat and settles in your gut, warming you up from the inside out and making you forget all your troubles. I’ve been sober for a long time. So long that this one drop is enough to pull me under the waves of its influence where I can drink until I reach the end of the bottle.

His tongue glides along the seam of my bottom lip, demanding entrance, and I can’t tell which way is up so I give in. The second our tongues meet I know this is the moment where I relapse.