I’ll give him whatever he wants. The fact that he still wants anything to do with me after all this… It’s amazing. This man… I’m really letting go of something special. If Jacqui ever finds out what I’m doing, she’ll kill me.
My stomach drops. I can’t tell Jacqui. I can tell her the same story I told Kyle, but that’s it. If I tell her what I’m doing, I know she’ll tell Kyle for my own good.
No, this is my problem. It will just be me and Jesse this time, and I’ll make sure he stays out of my life before I’m through.
Somehow,
“I better go,” Kyle says, clearing his throat. “I’m going to be late to work.”
“Right, yeah, you better head off,” I say, getting to my feet and arranging my robe so that I don’t accidentally flash him. “Even if it didn’t work out…thank you for yesterday. It was nice to hang out.”
“Yes,” he says slowly. Then he gives me a small smile and I feel like I’ve won the lottery. “It was. See you later, Allison.”
I rush to the door to open it for him, not wanting him to notice the broken lock. He doesn’t seem to realize that anything is amiss, and I watch him go, clutching the door. I swing it closed when he’s gone. Several minutes later, I hear his motorbike roar to life, and then he’s gone.
A single tear slips down my face, and I brush it away impatiently. Now isn’t the time to be upset. I haven’t lost everything, after all.
And if I want to get it back, then I need to be the one to win this war Jesse has waged against me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kyle
Allison was lying.
I ride away from her house, and I know this is true.
I hadn’t noticed at first. Most of my mind had been taken up by confusion. We had had a nice night. We got to know each other. We had gotten along very well, which was almost a surprise considering it’s taken us this long to actually sit and talk. Then she jumped me the moment we walked in the door.
So, I was understandably confused when Allison suddenly said she didn’t want a relationship with me.
The problem was, what she said made sense. I had noticed it, too. We didn’t share very many interests. She hates my motorbike. We’re from two very different cultures, and we lead very different lives. My life, growing up, was rough and filled with loss. Hers was quieter, a steady line from school to university. On paper, the two of us didn’t make sense.
But what did the stats mean? Why should any of that mean we couldn’t be together? I thought Allison agreed with me, right until she blindsided me this morning.
Then she asked me if we could be friends.
And I knew she was lying.
If there’s anything that I’ve figured out about Allison, it’s that she doesn’t hold onto the things that are causing her pain. She admitted that she liked me, and that she lusted after my body, so the best thing for her do was to just get rid of me entirely, kick me out of her life so that I’m not a temptation any more, a temptation that we’ve both found impossible to ignore.
So why keep me around?
Something is definitely up.
While I was puzzling over this in her apartment, I noticed the flowers on the table. They were pretty with bright colors, in a wrapped box. They made the kitchen look a little brighter. I had noticed them when I walked into the kitchen, but I hadn’t paid them much mind.
But now, as I think about it, I start to notice the oddities.
I pride myself on observation. Those flowers hadn’t been there last night, when we arrived back at her apartment.
Not only that, but there was the weird way Allison rushed for the door to let me out. If I asked her about it, she probably would have said that she wanted to see me off. But I noticed the break in the frame, and the way the lock looked oddly loose.
It all added up to one thing. Someone had been in Allison’s apartment last night and, for some reason, she didn’t tell me. No, I knew what reason she would have.
I gripped the handles so tightly that my knuckles turned white.
Jesse.