42. TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-TWO
EDEN
Alex is quiet on the drive home. Awkwardly so.
Every so often, he’ll run a hand over his chest and wince, then he’ll grumble something under his breath that sounds like a curse.
His forehead is set into a tight scowl, not angry, as such, but more confused than anything.
And the grip he has on the steering wheel is so tight his knuckles have turned white.
Not once does he look at me, or reach for my hand, or offer any sort of reassurance that what happened back there meant something to him.
But maybe it didn’t.
He’s the king of casual sex, and I knew that, so why would I expect it to be different with me?
Alex and I aren’t coming into this with the same experiences.
Sharing his body isn’t a big deal to him like it is for me, and it’s been so long since I shared my body with a man.
And I know we didn’t have sex or even see each other naked, but the moment I shared with him was laced with more vulnerability and intimacy than I ever experienced in the entirety of my marriage to Sebastian.
It was exposing. Raw, in many ways. Not just because of the things he did to me, but the things I admitted, and he, in turn, admitted to me. That he can’t stop looking at me, thinking about me. That he wants me.
I must have misinterpreted what he meant by that. Because now, it seems that he can’t look at me at all.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I whisper, too uncertain to put any real volume into my voice.
“Huh?” His eyes flick to me for just a beat before whipping back to the road.
“I asked if you’re okay.”
The tendons in his wrist strain from the force of his grip on the wheel. He clears his throat, rubs his chest again, squints his eyes like he’s in pain. “I told you I’m fine.”
Rejection claws at my insides, a feral cat slashing at my heart with talons as sharp as kitchen knives.
It was an understatement to say I must have misinterpreted his meaning.
I did so much more than that. I allowed his words to bloom something in my heart that I knew from the beginning had no place growing there.
Hope.
That our relationship could be more than what we’re pretending it is. That his soft touches, and burning kisses, and little kindnesses that I’ve never been shown before could become more than a pretty lie for the benefit of cameras and my ex-husband. Hope that those things could just be for us.
That, one day, maybe…it could all be real.
For a moment, I thought I had that. I felt his desperation in every lick of his tongue against mine, in the way that he held me, cradled my face, and looked at me like he’d die if I stopped touching him.
Guess I was just projecting, because had any of that been true, then he wouldn’t have gone so cold the moment it was over.
He got what he wanted from me, and that’s the end of that.
God, I’m an idiot. A stupid, pathetic, naive idiot.
Tears sting at my eyes as I cross my legs on the white leather seats and stare out the window.
It’s funny how the landscape appears to mirror my mood.
The lush greens and blossoming trees of the suburban neighborhood morph into steel, glass, and industrialist brick work as we reenter the city, color bleeding out into gray.
It’s ten more minutes of unbearable silence before the car finally rolls into the underground parking garage at Alex’s complex. I’m out the door like a shot, hightailing it to the elevators without looking over my shoulder to see if he’s following behind.
I don’t know if I want him to leave me alone or chase after me. Not that the choice is mine to make, which is made pretty damn clear when I hear the screeching of tires as he drives back out of the garage.
I look back then, through glassy eyes, at the glaring red of his taillights as he drives away.
I watch until the car peels right out of the building then stare aimlessly at the empty space it leaves behind.
I stare for so long my vision begins to blur.
Just staring and staring and staring at the vacant space where I wish he was standing but isn’t.
I do it as a form of punishment, I think. For allowing myself to believe, for just a moment, that a man like Alex Wolfe would ever want a woman like me.