Chapter 10 #2
As I retreat, he reaches out and takes hold of my arm.
I snatch it away and glare at him. I did not give him permission to touch me.
He frowns and takes a step back. “I’m sorry.
I shouldn’t have done that. But fuck, Ellie, can’t we just talk?
I don’t know what the hell’s going on with us.
What have I done to make you hate me so much? And what do you mean about Morocco?”
Fuck, why is he so cute? I’m trying to be angry.
But he looks so confused, so adorable, so much sexier than any man has the right to be.
Why is the universe doing this to me? Surely it’s not too much to ask for me to get totally hung up on a guy who’s likely to be into me back.
Someone in my own league. Not someone like Maddox, who’s entirely in a league of his own.
I sigh out loud. “I don’t hate you. But please, could you leave me alone? I need to get some air.”
“Me too. It’s…well, it’s been a day. Can I come with you? Can we please talk to each other like two human beings?”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes again.
I want to say no, to tell him that we’ve done enough talking.
But there’s a look in his eyes that tells me he needs this.
That he’s struggling. My compassion kicks in when I realize that he’s in some kind of pain, and that maybe I can do something about it.
Or not, depending on how honest the conversation gets.
My issues with him aside, there was a time when we bared our souls to each other, and he might just need that again.
“Okay. But I can’t promise to say anything you want to hear, Maddox.”
“That’s okay. I’ll settle for the company.”
We walk outside together and find a courtyard set up with cute seating areas.
It’s winter in New York, and I shiver as the cold air hits my exposed shoulders.
The weather forecast said we could have some snow tonight, not unusual for New York in January, and another good reason not to dress like Jessica Rabbit.
“You’re cold?” he asks, noticing me shivering.
“Yes. Are you going to be all romantic and slip your jacket around me?”
He grins, and my stupid heart races. “Nah. But I could do this.” He leans across me, and my heart stops racing, almost explodes. The scent of his cologne is insanely good, and his chest is so close.
He flicks on a switch, and one of the heat lights above us comes on. Right. That does help.
“What did you mean when you said that I didn’t think you were beautiful back then?”
So he wants to go there. “I think it’s obvious, Maddox.”
He blinks at me, like he’s confused. “No, it’s really not. So how about you tell me.”
My cheeks are now burning, and it’s not just down to the heat lamp.
It’s a combination of embarrassment and shame.
The memory of that rejection, but also now, as I try to put it into words, me realizing that he didn’t do anything wrong.
The man is allowed to not find me attractive.
It’s not exactly an exclusive list these days.
“Ellie? Please talk to me,” he says, and the pleading tone to his voice undoes me.
I take a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “I went out with you that night because I was told you were a sure thing,” I blurt out the words, mortified as I say them, but I need him to stop looking at me the way he is. God, it sounds even worse out loud.
His eyes widen with… shock, or horror? Possibly both. And I totally understand why. There’s more to it, and maybe I’ll tell him, but right now, left as it is, it sounds terrible. If I was a guy saying this about a woman I would quite rightly be called an asshole.
“A sure thing?” He laughs, loud and booming, drawing the attention of the other people in the garden. “You thought I was…what, some kind of fucking gigolo?”
I throw a hand over my eyes. Oh dear goddess, dear patron saint of embarrassed women, please, please let the ground open right up and swallow me whole. “No, not that. It’s just that I’d been told by everyone—”
“By everyone? Really? Because I did not fuck everyone…”
“No. Okay. I was told by a lot of girls I met that you were, you know, up for it. That you never said no to anybody.” I risk a peek at him through my fingers.
He’s shaking his head, looking both amused and sad. “That’s kind of fucked up, Ellie. Would you please look at me, by the way?”
It’s very fucked up, actually. I drop my hands and face him. My cheeks are probably as red as my dress right now.
He has his head tilted to one side, viewing me with curiosity. “So you only wanted my body, huh?”
I wince. God, that sounds awful. “It wasn’t like that, Maddox.”
He rests his chin on his hand, his deep brown eyes twinkling. How can he be having this terrible conversation and still look so good? “Then what was it like? Tell me.”
He’s not making this easy, and part of me doesn’t blame him.
I guess I’ve told myself the same narrative over the last couple of years, created my own legend.
What happened between us hurt me, deeply, and the way I’ve coped with that is to put all the blame on him.
Was that fair? Not at all, but it got me through those lonely nights.
I suppose that painting him as some charismatic douche-bucket made me feel less stupid about opening up to him the way that I did.
Something I don’t even do with friends, never mind complete strangers.
“Okay. Well. I’d just gotten out of this really toxic relationship.
I was feeling really low about my…” I close my eyes and will my skin to stop burning up.
Why is this so hard, all these years later?
It’s like I’ve jumped in a time machine and I’m right back there, feeling like I’m not good enough for anybody all over again.
When I open my eyes again, he’s still staring at me intently. Still waiting for an explanation.
“My body confidence was low, you know? And I’d heard about you. From those girls at the hostel, and on my travels. You were kind of famous, Maddox.”
He sucks in a breath, a small smile still on his face, sadness creeping into his eyes. “As a sure thing?”
I nod, and the sadness turns into fully-fledged hurt.
Now I can, all too clearly, see this from his perspective, and it sucks.
He’s a whole complex human being, and we objectified him.
Reduced him to a ‘sure thing’ like he was some kind of sex toy.
I wonder now if that’s one of the reasons him coming back into my life like this was such an unwelcome shock.
It wasn’t just that he rejected me when he apparently said yes to the rest of the world.
It was that I was also ashamed of the way I behaved.
Seeing him again held up a mirror to that.
“I’m so sorry, Maddox. I didn’t know you then and it wasn’t like…
oh, god it was very wrong of them to say that about you, I know, but I don’t think they meant it a bad way.
It was just fun to them. And they were very, very complimentary about your skills.
I mean, you were something of a legend in Marrakech, in case you didn’t know, and if I’m being honest—”
“Ellie,” he interrupts my string of word vomit, and I take the opportunity to suck in a much-needed breath of my own. “It’s okay. Really.”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t think it is.”
All this time I held the fact that he wouldn’t sleep with me against him, and only now do I see how very fucked up it was to expect him to.
His rejection hurt, especially after we seemed to have such a connection—it stung even more than the breakup with the guy I’d been traveling with for four months—but none of that was Maddox’s fault.
He laughs again, a self-deprecating one this time.
“No. It really is. Everything they said about me was true. I was a sure thing.” He screws his eyes closed, wincing.
“I fucked anything with a pulse, Ellie. I had no respect for myself. I told myself I was having fun. But by the end, I wasn’t, I was just escaping from other things.
I was using those women just as much as they were using me.
That’s the truth and I’m ashamed of it now. ”
“Oh.” I chew on my lip, not sure if that’s supposed to make me feel better or worse, because it kind of makes me feel the latter. He’s sitting here admitting to my face that he would literally fuck anybody, apart from me. “Right.”
Emotion flickers over him, and his expression turns serious. “That’s why I decided to become celibate.”
I almost fall off my stool. I am not easy to shock, but did I hear that right? “You decided to become what now?”
“Celibate.” He smiles softly. “Shortly before I went back to Marrakech.”
“Celibate. Like…no sex at all?”
He shrugs, looking resigned. Like this is a conversation he’s had a million times.
I’m pretty sure everybody has the same confused look on their face as I do right now.
The image of this man and celibacy does not compute.
This shakes me so much that I belatedly catch on to what he said next—‘shortly before I went back to Marrakech.’
I frown, trying to figure out the timing. He was in Morocco, Mad Dogging his way through, ahem, everything with a pulse. Then he was gone? Then he came back, with his dick retired from active service? Could it be…
“So you were celibate when we met, when we went out?”
He nods.
“And are you still?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Wow!” I blow out a breath and will my head to stop spinning.
That means…Wow! “I’m sorry, I don’t know why that’s so shocking to me.
It’s just…well, it’s so unusual to hear, I guess.
I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who’s willingly celibate before.
I had no idea. I guess I had this picture of you. ”
“Which to be fair, had once been an accurate one. I was indeed a giant man whore.”