Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“Are you hungry?” he asks me after we’ve found our room. He’s sitting on the edge of one of the beds, arms resting on his thighs, looking at me with puppy dog eyes. I’m curled up in a chair by the window, my arms wrapped around my knees, determined to shut him out as much as humanly possible.
“No.” I’m starving, but I don’t want to sit across a table from him, and I sure as hell don’t want to go to the restaurant where he took me to dinner.
“Hey, Ange,” he says. “Can we talk?”
“No.”
“Okay, then, how about I talk and you listen?”
I roll my eyes toward him. “How about you shut up, and you leave me alone?”
“Come on, Angela. You owe me, wouldn’t you say?”
Well, that pulls me up quick. He was all over town looking for me. He lied and risked his safety for me. He got us a hotel room far from the choking ash and smoke. As much as I hate to admit it, I do indeed owe him.
“Fine. Talk.”
He breathes out a sigh. “Okay,” he says, sounding relieved. “Look, like I tried to tell you at Finnegan’s, I’ve been dealing with some stuff with my dad. He got into some trouble, and I got involved, and it’s been a mess.”
“Why does your mom hate me?” I demand. “What does she know about me and how does she know it?”
“She doesn’t hate you. She was upset and overreacting because of the stuff with my dad. She wants me back home, and I guess she kind of saw you as the reason for me staying in California.”
“You’re in California for law school,” I say, completely confused.
“I know. Because of my dad.”
“What? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I can’t tell you more than that,” he says. “I’m really sorry. It could hurt my family. And it would definitely hurt you.”
The fact that I’m the last person who could judge him for keeping a dangerous family secret doesn’t do anything to lessen my anger and hurt.
“This is ridiculous,” I say. “I’m done talking.” I stand up to leave, but he grabs my hand as I walk past him.
“I’m not.”
I huff out a brief laugh. “Well, that’s no surprise,” I say sarcastically.
He shoots me an annoyed look but then drops his eyes to our hands and runs his thumb across my knuckles. When he looks up again, the remorseful puppy dog eyes are back. “I treated you like shit, and I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t even have let it…” His voice trails off.
“What?” I say, disbelief making my words tremble. “Let it get this far?”
His eyes drop back down to my hand, and he squeezes it gently. “Yeah.”
“Wow,” I say, feeling like he just took the air right out of my lungs.
I snatch my hand away. It’s only my anger that’s keeping my tears at bay, and just barely at that.
“Well, I’m so sorry I threw myself at you and forced you to hang out with me, Brady.
Gosh, let me think of all the ways I let you take this too far.
I took you out for coffee, I asked for your phone number, I invited you to a party, I asked for a ride to work, I invited myself back to your place, I took you on a date, I texted you all the time, I told you I’d run into a burning building for you— Oh, wait.
That wasn’t me! It was you!” My voice has risen almost to a shout.
“Angela—”
“Fuck you.”
“It’s not about you,” he says. “It’s about my family.”
“It’s not about me ?” I exclaim, my eyes wide with disbelief.
Jesus, is he trying to make me cry? Okay, enough of this bullshit.
I’m done here. “Well, today’s your lucky day, Brady.
Turns out, I was going to tell you the same thing, that I shouldn’t have let it get this far.
The operative word here being that I was going to tell you, not ghost you. ”
“Yeah, I know. I was an idiot. I’ve never done this before.”
“Well, I don’t think you need extensive relationship experience to know how to break up with someone,” I say with as much sarcasm as I can muster while on the brink of tears.
“I’m not…doing that.”
“You can’t even say it!” I say, completely disgusted. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, Brady. I’ll save you the trouble. We’re over. Whatever we were, we aren’t anymore. Okay?”
“No, not okay.” This time he stands up when I start to walk away, blocking me with his body.
“ Not okay , Angela.” He runs his hand through his hair.
“I’ve been miserable. I don’t know what to do.
I can’t be with you because of the stupid shit in my life, but I can’t be without you because… you’re…you’re…”
“I’m what?” I glare at him.
“You,” he says. The next thing I know, he’s pulled me against him.
I freeze, my body rigid against his. “You’re you.
You’re fearless, you work your ass off for everything you have, you’re hard and soft in just the right amounts.
Okay, maybe a little more softness wouldn’t be so bad, but I’m not complaining.
Anyway, you’re, like, nothing I ever expected.
I didn’t expect you to be like you. I didn’t expect to ever meet anyone like you. ”
I wrench myself free and give him a shove that makes him take a step backward. “I’m scared all the time,” I say, furious at the tears that spill from my eyes. “And you don’t know anything about me. You said it yourself.”
He tentatively closes the distance between us and puts a finger under my chin, tilting it up so I’ll look into those gentle green eyes.
They aren’t puppy eyes anymore. The remorse is still there, but so are a lot of other things, too.
Intense, scary things that make me weak in the knees.
I’m no match for those eyes. Whatever is going on here, he’s going to win.
“Let me tell you what I know,” he says softly.
“I know what you look like sleeping, I know how it feels to touch all of that gorgeous hair, I know how small your wrists feel when I wrap my hands around them. I know you’re a damn good liar, and I also know I can see through a lot of your shit.
I know you’re brave and strong and smart as hell.
I know you’d give up a life of luxury for a walk-up in Queens if it means getting to do the work that matters to you. I know you, Angela.”
I shake my head, more tears spilling.
“You want to know something else?” he says. I swallow and wait for him to continue. “Being without you felt like being without my family.”
“Brady,” I whisper. But this time I let him wrap his arms around me.
“I’m sorry, Ange,” he says, and the pain and remorse in his voice make my breath hitch. “I’m really sorry. I can’t believe I was such a jerk to you. I swear to God I was just trying to protect you.”
I realize that I’ve brought my arms around his waist. I sigh and let myself relax against him. “Don’t do me any more favors like that, Brady.”
“I won’t.” He rests his head on mine. “If you knew the truth about me, Ange, you’d never want to be with me.”
“Who says I want to be with you?” He huffs out a laugh and squeezes me tighter. My hands grip the back of his shirt to hold him closer to me. “The same goes for me, by the way,” I say. “You wouldn’t want to be with me if you knew the truth.”
“Wrong,” he says. “There is not a single thing you can tell me about yourself that would make me run from you.”
“You can’t know that—”
“Yeah, I can. I would do anything to be with you, Angela. And if that means not telling you the one truth that would make me lose you, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“You would lose me over whatever it is you’re not telling me? How do you even know that?”
“I just know.”
I pull away so I can look up at him. “So, you’re just…not going to tell me?”
He puts his hands on my face and meets my eyes. “I’m just not going to tell you.”
“That’s a dead end, Brady.”
“Yeah. I know,” he says with a sigh. “There’s a little bit of road before we hit the dead end, though. Can we just stay on it for now?”
He has nothing on my secrets. I’m sure whatever he thinks is a dead end is just a bump in the road. “Yeah,” I say. “We can do that.”
He brings his lips to mine. The kiss starts out gentle and tentative. But my mouth is so happy to taste his again that within seconds I’m devouring him, he’s groaning and falling back onto the bed with me on top of him, and our clothes are coming off.
“I don’t have any condoms,” he says, his lips on my ear.
“That’s okay,” I say. “We’re not having sex.”
“Right. Yeah, of course. I didn’t mean…”
“Please shut up, McDaniels,” I say, smiling against his mouth.
“Whatever you say, Pines.”