Chapter Twenty-Eight Silas
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Silas
I f I could stay here forever, I would.
I would remain naked, halfway on top of the woman who, mere moments ago, walloped me over the head with two proverbial hammers that have fundamentally changed the way I look at the world.
First, my will power is actually pretty weak when it comes to Jo.
Second, I am in love with her.
Unfortunately, none of this justifies the fact that I did the one thing I said I wouldn’t do. I promised myself I would tell her everything , even though it would mean jeopardizing the feelings I’ve been fighting against for a while now. It does, however, explain how this happened—I would do anything this woman asked of me without a second thought.
She stirs beneath me, her long legs flexing and her nails gently running down my back, causing goose bumps to erupt in their wake. Even though I wish I could permanently halt the turning of the earth on its axis, especially if that meant I didn’t have to face the consequences of my own actions, there are things a person must do after sex.
On shaky arms, I haul myself up enough to swing my legs over the side of the bed. I turn back to brush the wild hair off her face. She smiles at me, warm and sated, and I allow myself a few precious moments to admire the spread of her dark, shiny mane on my white pillowcases, as if she was always meant to be here.
Maybe she did invent hair.
“You want first pass at the bathroom?” I ask. “I’ll find you something clean and dry to wear.”
She nods and pulls herself out of bed, giving me the chance to silently worship the way her muscles pull and flex as she moves in the nude. Those fucking legs. She gives me a soft, easy kiss on the lips before she disappears into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
Alone, I let out a huge sigh and scrub my hands over my face.
I will tell her while we eat. Once she’s comfortable and fed, I will tell her the truth.
This resolve gives me the strength to stand. After disposing of the condom, I tend to myself as best as I can. I toss Jo’s wet clothes into a plastic bag before finding my coziest sweats for her to wear. It’s an old, exceptionally soft set from my college days, the BU lettering so cracked and faded it’s nearly indecipherable. While they’re hardly impressive, they are mine, and my heart swells at the thought of seeing Jo in my clothes.
I pull on my own sweatpants before heading over to my desk. My stomach gives an almighty rumble just as Jo exits the bathroom. “Here,” I say, as I pass her the sweatpants and hoodie. “Your clothes are still pretty wet, so you can wear these. Are you hungry?”
She’s already pulling the hoodie over her damp hair when she says, “Almost always.”
I flip open my computer and pull up the online menu for my favorite takeout place. One of the many benefits of living on the edge of Chinatown is access to remarkable, authentic Chinese food from all different regions within walking distance. This particular place is around the corner from my building, and the wait is never long.
I step back and make for the bathroom. “Find what you want. I’ll just be a second.”
My heart splutters at the difficult conversation ahead, slowing me down as I pad around the bathroom. I want to rush back to her so that I can savor every second of our time together, but it’s as if my limbs and fingers are determined to punish me for my transgressions.
Ultimately, I emerge from the bathroom after only a few minutes, even though it feels like much longer.
But the air in the room has shifted. It’s cold. Stilted. All the life and joy cooked up by our spontaneous afternoon romp is gone. Panic zips through me as I stare at Jo, dressed in my collegiate sweats, her eyes locked on the computer screen, one hand covering her mouth.
“You okay?” I ask on my approach, my hand outstretched to touch her.
The hand on her mouth drops to swat me away. She recoils from me—literally, she physically curls into herself in an effort to avoid me. My heart is beating so fast I barely have time to register the rage on her face. Her eyes are wide, her lips slightly parted, but not in a sexy, pleasant way. This is a look of shock, undercut only by the red staining her cheeks.
“Modeling agency rejects?” Her voice is so low, so murderous, I almost can’t hear her over the rain pelting my windows.
And then it hits me, what she’s saying, what she’s seen —the first draft of my article, the one I keep open to remind myself of how much I’ve changed. The final article is, of course, not open because I emailed it to Colin last night after working on it all day. The world drops out from under me. I have to fix this, have to explain—
“A cult?” she seethes. “Someone wholly out of touch?”
Every word of my own writing that she spits back at me is like a lash to my heart.
“No, Jo, listen. I can explain—” I reach for her again, desperate to ground myself, but she darts away, circling me like a very angry hawk.
“Don’t fucking touch me.” Her rejection slices through me. With my back to the computer, I freeze as much as I can, but my outstretched hands are shaking. “I can’t… I don’t… What was your end game here, Silas? No, don’t answer that.” Her chest heaves with the effort to breathe. “I don’t want to know.”
There’s an ugly, charged silence between us. She won’t even look at me; her eyes are closed, one hand shielding part of her face. The cracked BU lettering on her chest trembles as she struggles to maintain her breathing.
“You knew who I was, didn’t you?” she finally asks. “The first day we met. The day at the bar.”
I can feel everything I’ve worked so hard to contain—all the little half-truths I’ve told—slipping through my fingers as I reply, “Yes.”
“Does Derek know? That you knew who I was?”
Another lash to my heart. “No. He doesn’t know.”
That is what makes her lock eyes with me. The expression on her face is one of wild fury as she says, “So you used him to get to me.”
“Yes,” I reply, my entire body shaking under the weight of her gaze. “But it’s not like that anymore—”
“You. Lied. To. Me.” Every word out of her mouth is as sharp as a dagger.
There’s a long beat of silence between us. The only sounds in my entire apartment—the entire world, as far as I’m concerned—are our labored breaths and the rain hitting the windowpanes.
But then she moves, heading straight for her boots and purse near the door. As she pulls on her Wellingtons and tosses her bag over her shoulder, I’m crumbling, falling, flailing. My pulse roars in my ears; it’s so loud I’m certain she can hear it too. But she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at me as she grips the door handle and flings it open.
Panic seizes me. “Wait, Jo, please. Please let me explain—”
The door slams in my face, and she is gone.
I give myself one, two, three seconds of barely contained hysteria before I wrench the door open and run onto the landing. I can still hear her heavy footsteps in the stairwell, and I dash down without thinking. I don’t care that I’m not wearing a shirt or shoes or that my front door is open—all that matters is making sure that she is okay, that I at least start to make this right.
I have to fix this. She has to know how fucking sorry I am, how fucking sorry I have been since the minute I realized how wrong I’d been from the start.
“Jo, please wait! I’m so sorry! What you read isn’t the final draft—please let me explain!”
I don’t even know if she can hear me, but my neighbors certainly can, and they’re going to think I’m truly unwell after this. The front door to the building opens just as I crash land onto the second floor. The sounds of the street spill inside—mostly heavy-duty rainfall and the sluicing of tires cutting through puddles—and I pick up my pace. My breath is sawing through my lungs by the time I make it to the ground floor and fling myself out onto the sidewalk.
My head whips left, then right, just in time to see Jo steal a cab right out from under an unsuspecting man with an umbrella, who seems to be frightened by how aggressively she wrenches that taxi door open. Even over the rumble of thunder and the rain soaking me to the bone, I hear that cab door slam. Frozen, I watch as the car pulls away from the curb and makes its way up my street until hooking a right on the Bowery.
And now she is really gone.
It’s with that knowledge—that everything has rightfully blown up in my face—that I trudge my way back to my building’s front door, only to find that it closed behind me. My keys are upstairs. I don’t have my phone. It’s pouring fucking rain, and I’m not wearing a shirt.
I suppose this is what I deserve from the universe. Even as I start pushing the buzzers of my neighbors’ units, the salt of my tears mixing with the rain streaking down my face, I find a surprising comfort in the clarity of my next steps.
I have to fix this. Make this right. Let Jo see what I really think of her. Apologize profusely.
Even if she never comes back to me, she has to know—that I love her, and I was entirely, wholly wrong.