Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83772 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83772 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
“I was angry that you spoke to him at all, and I lost my temper.”
“I don’t know how a man like you could possibly be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Then what are you?”
He was quiet for a while. “Indignant. Because that man doesn’t deserve to look at you ever again, let alone speak to you. He should be dead right now, but he lives because he’s a rat in a sewer and I don’t chase rats. If he were a greater man, he would meet me face-to-face under the eyes of David, and we would carve each other like pumpkins until one of us bleeds out first. But he’s a fucking coward, a coward who didn’t deserve you in the first place. I’m indignant that you spoke to him because he’s so fucking beneath you. You should have hung up the second you heard his voice.”
“I—I froze. I’m sorry.” It was a wild moment, and I was scared and my ass was sweating. “I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for me outside. Or if he already had you and wanted to make a trade… I didn’t know.”
He stared at his hands for a while, his knuckles locked together, before he spoke again. “It’s okay.” His eyes lifted to look at me again. The hardness of his stare had softened noticeably, like a knife that had been dulled by time.
“I don’t want to lose you.” Even when it seemed like things were better, I knew they were irrevocably different. Before today, our relationship had possibilities, but now it was weighed down with obligations. I told Theo I loved him, and now he was tasked with reciprocating or rejecting that love. I already knew what he would choose.
He held my stare with his intensity. “I’m right here.”
“I don’t want to scare you away.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t get scared.”
“You know what I mean.” He could walk through bullets and knives unscathed, but words were invisible and impossible to dodge. They hit him everywhere, all at once. “I told him if he ever loved me, he would let me be happy. I don’t know if I started a fire or if I put it out.”
He seemed unencumbered by the weight of my words. I didn’t say I loved him again, but I shared that I was happy with him…and he was the one I wanted. “Neither. You kicked the hornet’s nest.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be. Maybe now he’ll show his face.”
When I came home, it was past seven.
I wasn’t sure if Theo was there. Sometimes he was gone for the night. Sometimes he was in his room. After my revelation at the gallery, I suspected he would be out until morning. A good excuse to avoid my tentacles until morning.
Truth be told, I wished we could just forget it ever happened.
I went by his room and knocked, expecting no answer.
“It’s open.”
I stilled when I heard his deep voice. I waited on the other side of the door, trying to remember if he sounded annoyed.
“I said, it’s open.”
I stepped inside and found him on the couch in front of the TV. There was a game on, and he watched it in just his sweatpants, his decanter of scotch there, along with a bucket of ice. Most guys preferred a beer when they were off the clock, but that would practically be water to someone like Theo.
He looked at me, one arm over the back of the couch.
“Sorry, I didn’t expect you to be home.”
“Didn’t want you to think I was avoiding you.”
“So you stayed home to make me think you weren’t avoiding me, even though you do want to avoid me?”
“I don’t want to avoid you, sweetheart.” He patted the seat beside him. “Now get your ass over here.”
I stood there and stared at the vacant seat. “Can we just forget what happened earlier today?”
He stared at me for a long time, the reflection of the TV in his eyes. “I don’t want to forget.”
It was stupid to expect him to say he loved me back when I knew he wouldn’t, but I was somehow still disappointed when it didn’t happen. So I prepared for the worst-case scenario, of losing him altogether. But this reaction was much better than that, and it felt like a win.
He patted the seat again.
I joined him on the couch, still in my skirt and blouse, and immediately felt his arm circle my waist and pull me close. He cradled me into his body, his lips brushing across my hairline, his hand making itself welcome underneath my blouse on my rib cage.
My face went to his chest, and I lay still, not paying attention to the game on the TV, just the warmth of his skin, the way he held me, the way nothing had changed. My hand went to his thigh and felt the hard muscles underneath the soft material.