He stepped past her. “Look, it’s late. I need to get going.”
“Get going?” she asked, following him into her bedroom, a bloodhound on the hunt. “It’s the middle of the night. What happened to you’ll sleep here if you want to?
He searched for his jeans and boxers on the other side of the bed, digging amongst the pillows and blanket they’d knocked onto the floor. “If I want to. I can’t tonight. I have to be somewhere in the morning.”
She stalked over and stepped in front of him before he could grab his jeans off the floor. She gave him a pointed stare. “Bullshit. Don’t try to lie to me. I work with addicts and actors for a living. Your professor referred you because she thinks you have dyslexia. Did you get tested?”
He reached between her feet and grabbed his jeans, some weird fight-or-flight response welling in him. He didn’t want her to see this side of him. When he was with her, he felt confident and in control and like the version of himself he wanted to be. This conversation made him feel like that stupid kid all over again. “No. I don’t need to. School’s just not for me.”
Elle huffed with disgust. “Oh my God, you are not doing that male pride thing.”
He didn’t respond.
“Come on, Cannon. You’re better than that. If you’re having trouble, get yourself evaluated and they’ll give you help.”
“I don’t want help.” He shoved his leg in his jeans, giving up on finding the boxers. “I wanted to do it on my own. If I can’t get it that way, I don’t want it.”
At that, she stepped forward, put her palms onto his chest and, taking advantage of his off-balance state, shoved him onto the bed. “Stop getting dressed like you’re leaving. And that’s ridiculous logic. Get over yourself.”
His jaw flexed, his fingers gripping the side of the mattress. “I’m sure that’s easy for you to say. Let me guess—you graduated top of your class, went to some fancy university on scholarship, everyone’s always told you how brilliant you are? I bet you didn’t even have to study because it just came naturally to you.”
Defiance flared in her eyes. “I worked my ass off, for the record. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Because you don’t get it,” he said, voice rising. “You don’t get what it feels like for someone to look at you with pity because you want something, but you’re not smart enough or because you came from the wrong place and the wrong family and had the wrong life. That you’re just faking it. That you’re smoke and mirrors.”
The words spilled out of him, and he wanted to gather them back the minute they were out there. But if he expected a free pass from Elle, she wasn’t going to give it. “Don’t do that, Lane. You got dealt a shit hand. Okay, fine. That sucks. But it doesn’t mean you get to use that as an excuse.”
“It’s not an excuse.”
“Right. Sure, it’s not. You know what I’d write in your chart if you were a patient? Self-defeating behaviors and pride too big for his own damn good.”
“You sure you’re not reading your own chart?” he tossed back.
She narrowed her eyes as if he’d hit the mark but then shook her head. “Oh, don’t turn it around on me. We can worry about my fucked-up-ness later.”
He smirked. “Your fucked-up-ness?”
“That file is too thick to get into right now. We’re talking about you.”
“No, we’re not. I’m leaving.”
She put her hands on his shoulders and straddled him before he could get up. Her thighs squeezed around him with more strength than he would’ve expected, and his feet tangled in his jeans. “No, you’re not. And, yes, we are.”
His body responded to her climbing on top of him of its own volition, but he couldn’t have this conversation with her. “Leave it alone, Elle.”
She met his eyes and held the gaze, something determined but uncharacteristically gentle there. “Give me one therapy moment. Humor me and you can have your own with me at the time of your choosing. Then I will take off this robe and we will get back to what we’re good at.”
Lane let his hands rest on her waist, enjoying the feel of her despite his frustration with the conversation “You’re baiting me with sex? Dr. McCray, I thought you were above that.”
“Don’t think so highly of me.”
He let out a breath. “Fine. One doctor moment. One.”
“Good,” she said, her tone all business. “I get that it’s hard to accept that you need help with something. That you can’t do something one-hundred percent your way. Believe me. But you’re not going to drop out of school.”
“Elle—”
She put her fingers over his mouth. “Because if you do, you’re proving all those people who told you that you weren’t good enough right. Dyslexia or any other learning disability is just something that is. If you couldn’t walk, you wouldn’t reject a wheelchair. This is just like that—a thing that can be addressed and accommodated. It’s not something you caused and it literally, scientifically, has zero to do with your level of intelligence. You’re not dumb. But if you drop out of school over it instead of getting help, then you are an idiot and they win.”