Chapter 6

Dean's POV

I had always been attracted to Maya.

I just hadn't always understood what that attraction meant.

When she first came into our lives, she was just Ethan's new friend.

A little girl with wide eyes, scraped knees, and a habit of holding onto Ethan's sleeve whenever she felt overwhelmed. She had just moved into town, and I remember seeing her standing beside our parents while Ethan practically bounced around her, excited to introduce her to everyone.

She looked terrified.

I didn't pay much attention to her after that.

At least, that's what I told myself.

She was my little brother's best friend.

That was all she was supposed to be.

For years, she existed somewhere in the background of my life. I'd see her at our house, sitting beside Ethan at the dinner table or curled up on the couch with a book. Sometimes she'd follow Ethan around the house, and other times she'd disappear into some quiet corner with a novel.

She was always reading.

Even as a child, she seemed to live halfway inside the stories she loved.

I remember thinking she was strange.

Not in a bad way.

Just different.

She was quieter than Ethan. More observant. She didn't need to be the loudest person in a room to make herself noticeable.

I noticed her long before I admitted that I did.

One memory in particular had stayed with me.

She was twelve when she fell from the treehouse.

I had been outside when I heard the crash.

When I found her, she was sitting on the ground, trying very hard not to cry. She had scraped her knee and hurt her arm, and Ethan wasn't around.

I remember kneeling beside her and cleaning the wound.

I remember how small she looked.

How stubbornly she tried to convince me that she was fine even though tears were running down her cheeks.

Eventually, exhaustion won.

She fell asleep against my shoulder while I waited for our parents to come home.

I remember looking down at her.

Her face was peaceful.

There was something about that moment that stayed with me.

Maybe it was because she trusted me enough to fall asleep beside me.

Maybe it was because, for once, she wasn't Ethan's best friend.

She was just Maya.

The little girl who had somehow become a permanent part of our family.

I remember telling our parents that she'd fallen like an angel.

The nickname was supposed to be a joke.

It wasn't supposed to follow her for years.

But it did.

Angel.

I never really thought about why I liked calling her that.

Not until much later.

High school changed things.

Maya changed.

I changed too.

There was no single moment when I suddenly looked at her and realized she wasn't a child anymore.

It happened gradually.

A little too gradually.

I started noticing things I had no business noticing.

The way she smiled when Ethan said something stupid.

The way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was nervous.

The way she became quieter when she was uncomfortable.

The way she looked at people when she thought they weren't watching.

And sometimes, she looked at me.

Those moments were always brief.

But I noticed everyone.

I knew I shouldn't have.

She was Ethan's best friend.

She had practically grown up in our house.

There were lines I wasn't supposed to cross.

So I didn't.

Not for a long time.

I dated other girls.

A lot of other girls.

It was easier that way.

People already expected me to be that guy. The flirt. The guy who never stayed with one girl for too long. I let them believe it because it meant nobody looked too closely at me.

Nobody asked why I sometimes found myself searching for Maya when she was in the same room.

Nobody asked why I remembered little things about her that I had no reason to remember.

Nobody asked why I always noticed when she changed her hair.

And Maya never asked either.

Then came that night at Troy's party.

I remember seeing her sitting by the pool.

Away from everyone.

She looked peaceful there.

The party was loud, crowded, and chaotic, but she seemed completely separate from it. She sat with her feet in the water, staring at the surface.

I remember walking toward her.

I remember sitting beside her.

I remember the silence between us.

And I remember looking at her lips.

That was the moment I stopped pretending.

I kissed her.

For a second, I forgot how to breathe.

I'd imagined it before. More times than I would ever admit. But imagination hadn't prepared me for the way she responded.

She kissed me back.

That was the part that nearly ruined me.

Her lips moved against mine like she had been waiting for it too. Her fingers tightened against me, and the little sound she made went straight through me. I could feel her leaning closer, almost instinctively, like she wanted to close whatever space remained between us.

I remember thinking that maybe I'd been wrong all these years.

Maybe I hadn't imagined the way she looked at me.

Maybe she had been fighting the same thing I had.

For those few seconds, there was no Ethan.

No rules.

No history.

No reason I should have been holding myself back.

There was only Maya.

Then everything changed.

She pulled away so suddenly that I barely had time to understand what had happened.

Her eyes were wide.

She looked startled, almost frightened.

I reached for her wrist without thinking, stopping her before she could get away.

Angel.

The word came out before I could stop it.

I wanted her to look at me.

I wanted to know what had just happened between us.

I wanted her to tell me she hadn't regretted it.

Instead, she ripped her hand from mine.

And ran.

I stayed there.

For a moment, I couldn't move.

My mind kept replaying the kiss, desperately trying to make sense of the ending.

She had kissed me back.

She had kissed me back.

So why had she run?

I watched the doorway where she'd disappeared, waiting for her to come back.

She didn't.

The realization settled slowly.

She regretted it.

Maybe she had only kissed me because she didn't know how to stop.

Maybe she had panicked.

Maybe she'd realized exactly who I was and remembered that I was Ethan's brother.

Whatever the reason, the result was the same.

She didn't want me.

That thought hurt far more than it should have.

I had never been the kind of man who cared when a woman walked away.

I was used to rejection.

I'd been rejected before.

I'd broken things off myself more times than I could count.

But this was different.

Because this was Maya.

And I'd spent years pretending I didn't want her.

Years convincing myself that the strange feeling in my chest whenever she walked into a room meant nothing.

Then I'd finally allowed myself to have her for a few seconds.

And she ran.

I remember sitting there afterward, staring at the water.

I couldn't even bring myself to follow her.

What was I supposed to do?

Chase after her and ask why she had kissed me if she didn't want me?

Ask why she'd looked at me like that?

Ask whether she'd felt what I had felt?

No.

My pride wouldn't let me.

So I stayed where I was and swallowed the disappointment.

By the time I went back inside, I'd already made a decision.

Whatever had happened between us was over.

I would never bring it up.

I would never ask her about it.

And I would never let her know how badly it had hurt.

At least, that was the plan.

Plans had a funny way of falling apart when Maya was involved.That kiss proved I couldn't.

And then she ran from me.

I told myself she had been scared.

I told myself she hadn't expected it.

I told myself she didn't feel the same way.

That last one hurt the most.

So I buried it.

I went back to being myself.

Or at least, the version of myself everyone expected.

I dated.

I flirted.

I kissed other girls.

I let people think none of it mattered.

But Maya stayed somewhere in the back of my mind.

Years passed.

We went to university.

She became more confident, more independent, more beautiful.

And somehow, she still had the ability to make me feel like that seventeen-year-old boy sitting beside the pool.

The difference was that now I understood what I wanted.

I wanted her.

I just didn't know whether she wanted me.

Then I saw her at the restaurant.

And everything I'd spent years burying came rushing back.

She looked at me.

I looked at her.

I knew she remembered.

There was no way she could have forgotten.

I kissed the woman beside me anyway.

Partly because I wanted to.

Partly because I wanted to see whether Maya would react.

It was childish.

I knew that.

But when her eyes met mine, I couldn't stop watching her.

She looked away first.

That should have been enough.

It wasn't.

Then Ethan invited me to stay with them.

I should have refused.

Instead, I agreed before I could think too much about it.

Now I was living under the same roof as her.

Seeing her every morning.

Hearing her footsteps.

Watching her walk around the apartment half-awake.

Learning the little habits she had developed over the years.

And pretending I wasn't paying attention.

Last night, Ethan had asked her if she liked anyone.

I had watched her deny it.

Too quickly.

I knew she was hiding something.

Maybe there really was someone else.

Maybe there wasn't.

Either way, I wasn't going to ask.

Not yet.

Because I'd already made one mistake with Maya years ago.

I wasn't going to make another one by rushing her.

For now, I could wait.

I had waited this long.

But there was one thing I knew for certain.

I had never stopped being attracted to Maya.

I had simply gotten better at hiding it.

And now that she was living with me, hiding it was becoming a lot harder.