“Thank God you’re here,” he whispered softly, and my heart tripped up. “The girl at your three o’clock went home with me the other night and now thinks she has some claim on me. Mind helping me out tonight?”

And there went my heart. Dropped straight through my stomach and was left lying uselessly on the floor. Was that . . . yep! That was Eli stomping on it. Again.

When I finally got my throat to work, all that came out was a breathy “Uh . . .” that was lost in the cheering throughout the bar.

“You’re the best, Pay!” His mouth brushed against my neck as he leaned back, but he pulled me between his legs where he sat on the bar stool—caging me in between him and the bar.

Like always, the ear he’d just been speaking into and the line where his mouth had dragged across my neck were on fire. Where his arm locked around my waist was burning me through my shirt, and I was having trouble breathing.

But that could have also been because I was on the verge of tears.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened, not by a long shot—and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. Yet every time I expected it to be different. I expected him to actually want me, for his touches to mean something. And just like every other time, I swore to myself that this would be the last time I let him use me to get his psychotic girlfriends or one-nighters to go away.

I almost laughed out loud. Who was I kidding? I would do anything for him.

Everyone in the bar erupted into cheers and yells of displeasure, snapping me out of my pity party, and I looked up at one of the many TVs hanging throughout the bar. Eli’s arm constricted around my waist, pulling me impossibly closer, and his lips were at my ear again.

“I’m exhausted. We had meetings all day today, but when I was about to leave here, Laura showed up and tried to come home with me. So I just need to stick it out until she goes first. Swear to God though, I’m about to fall asleep on the bar.”

A quick glance confirmed Laura was shooting daggers at me and was most likely the reason Eli was pulling me close again. To anyone else, he probably looked like he was whispering anything from sweet nothings to naughty promises in my ear.

If only they knew.

I nodded my head and grabbed the mostly-full Guinness in front of me. “This yours?” I don’t know why I asked, who else drank Guinness other than Eli?

“Of cour—”

“Great.” Without asking, I tipped the large glass back to my lips and gulped down the thick beer until there was nothing left but remnants of foam.

Eli grabbed the empty glass and set it on the counter before turning me to face him. “Christ, Pay, what was that? You hate Guinness.”

I do hate it. Like really, really hate it. Oh God, how do people enjoy that stuff? My stomach felt sick from the thick liquid, and I was still making a face as if I’d just downed a shot of tequila. Looking past his head, I contemplated how fast I could make it to the door when Eli cupped my cheeks.

“Hey, look at me. What’s wrong, did you have a bad day?”

Well, I just came to the depressing realization that I’ve been in love with you and have waited for you for twelve years—and yet I’ve done nothing about it and probably will never do anything about it because I’m a wimp. And I know you don’t feel the same since you’re using me as a shield for the umpteenth time in our friendship. So yeah, you can say it’s been a bad last few minutes.

I looked to where Laura had just been standing and scanned the immediate area when I didn’t find her there. “I have to go home I forgot I have morning . . . early—I have to get up early,” I stammered, and pushed against one knee caging me in. Eli just held me there tighter.

Brushing loose hair away from my face, his hands went back to cupping my cheeks and forced me to look at him again. His blue eyes were wide with worry and I almost forgot what I’d been attempting to do when I saw them. I loved his eyes, I could get lost in them. Against his tan skin and dirty-blond hair, they looked like dark oceans with bolts of lightning going through them.

I started to lean into his touch, but then remembered why he was touching me. When it was just us there were hugs, arms slung around shoulders, and the nights we curled up with each other in one of our beds, but nothing more. When I was acting as his way out—it was everything I’d always craved from him. My few moments of deluding myself into thinking his touches meant something . . . my few moments of pretending.

And this was the last time I would have those moments.

My vision went blurry and I blinked rapidly against the stupid traitor tears that were threatening to spill down my cheeks.

“Paisley, you’re crying?” he whispered harshly, and I felt his body go still against mine. “Tell me who they are, and what they did. Now.”

The who was making me quickly lose my will to walk away, and the what was not helping by going all hero on me and holding me closer. I pushed against his chest and he responded by sliding one of his hands from my cheek to the back of my neck, bringing my face close enough that our foreheads and noses were touching.

A quick rush of air left my body and I stopped breathing for tortured moments as I realized this was the closest our lips had ever been. He doesn’t want you, Paisley. He doesn’t want you. Closing my eyes, I tried pushing against his chest again.

“Stop trying to leave,” he gritted.

“You can stop touching me, your fuck buddy already left.”

Eli jerked back and stared at me with open shock. Using the shock to my advantage, I pushed against his strong leg and had made it two steps away from him when he caught my arm and swung me back to him.

“Pay—”

“Let me go!”

The bar was loud enough that only a couple of our friends who had been sitting near him had heard me. But in that moment, it wouldn’t have mattered if an entire city heard me yell that at him, or no one at all. I wanted to take it back. The hurt that tore through those blue eyes I loved so much caused an ache to rip through my chest, worse than the one I’d already been battling.

Instinct told me to ask him to forgive me . . . I couldn’t stand the thought of him being mad at me or hurting because of something I’d done. But survival kicked in and took forefront. Because of my pathetic excuse for a backbone, he had been unknowingly hurting me since we were thirteen years old, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I needed to stop waiting around for him to fall in love with me too.

I needed to stop letting him have this control over me.

I needed to start living for me. Not for Eli Jenkins.

Wrenching my arm free from his grasp, I turned and fled from the bar. I’d just opened the door to my car when Eli’s hand slapped down on the glass and slammed it shut.

“What was that, Paisley?” Before I could respond, he was talking again. “You know I don’t give a shit if Laura was still there or not. If you’re upset and about to start crying—you’re all that matters. You’re my best friend, if something’s going on with you, then you have my full attention. I’d already completely forgotten about her by the time you picked up my beer.”

I hated and loved that Eli wasn’t the kind of guy to yell. He’d always had a calmness about him, even in the most stressful of situations. To see him go off meant that whatever was wrong was wrong in an epic sort of way. But that didn’t mean he didn’t get mad. And I’d been around him long enough to pick out his emotions. It was all in his eyes and the deepness of his voice—and right now, Eli was hurt and pissed off. Knowing that, and seeing his calm exterior, was worse than just having him yell at me.