I scrub a hand across my face. “You’re mad I didn’t take you to the wedding? Is that it? I…maybe I should have.” I stab my fingers through my hair.Fanculo.“Let’s talk this over.”
She shakes her. “It’s okay. I understand. This is an arrangement. You made it perfectly clear you’re not my boyfriend. Of course, you wouldn’t take me to a family wedding. I get it.”
“No.” I hold out my palms. “It’s not like that. I found myself wishing you were there, doll. I just like to keep things separate for your safety. And because I prefer not to mix my dating life with my kids.”
“Yourkidsare nineteen years old!”
“It’s just easier this way.”
“I know.” She brushes past me and walks into the bedroom.
I follow.
“You want someone you can control. Someone you don’t have to answer to. You like to play your little games with me, don’t you?”
Dammit. This has gone so far off the rails I’m not sure I can recover. She was so agreeable all along. I thought–stupidly–this arrangement was working for her.
“I’m sorry you’re upset.”
“I’m sorry you’re upset means you don’t think you did anything wrong.” She throws my words back at me.
She’s right.
But am I truly sorry? Not really. I liked our arrangement. I don’t want the boring, vanilla sort of dating life a girlfriend would entail.
“Lex,” I coax. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just the way I wanted our relationship to go. You seemed perfectly happy to accept it, so I didn’t see a problem.”
Tears fill her eyes, but judging from the set of her jaw, they’re the angry kind. “I just need some time to think. Could you leave? I want you to go.”
My heart twists painfully in my chest.
A tear slides down her cheek.
It takes everything in my power not to lunge forward and fold her up into my arms. But she doesn’t want to be touched. Not by me. Not now, anyway.
“Lexi,” I try again.
“Please,” she begs. “Please? Just go?”
Coldness descends from my heart all the way to my shoes. “Yeah, okay,” I say. “We’ll talk in the morning, okay?”
She needs space, so I’ll give it to her.
She doesn’t answer–not that I expected her to.
I walk out, turning my mind off.
I don’t want to think about how I fucked this up. Badly.
Maybe irreparably.
I hate leaving things unresolved between us. It goes against all my better instincts. I should stay and fight for her. But I respect her too much to ignore her wishes.
I just hope I can come up with the right words tomorrow to make her stay.
* * *
Lexi