“I didn’t! I fucking lied! I was never with her!”
Chapter Forty-Eight
It feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room, leaving me gasping for air. I turn away and run my hands through my hair. I need a moment to think. If I don’t, I’m afraid I will blow up. I feel his eyes searing through me as I gather my thoughts. But I can’t grab one single thought, not when they’re all running amok.
Why would he lie about something like that? It drove us apart and drove both he and I insane. I mean, look at us. We’re a mess. I haven’t been able to sleep since that day at the tattoo shop, and he’s drunk out of his mind. What good did he think would come from lying to me?
“Say something,” he pleads and walks toward me. I face him and give him a look. He opens his mouth but stops when I hold a hand up. I need space from him. Something unnatural feels like it’s opened for him, but I need answers before I let myself be open.
“Don’t. Don’t come near me. I need answers, Grey. And if you lie and hurt me more than you already have, I will not hesitate to leave.”
“Fine,” he says and falls onto the bed, letting out a winded breath. “But I need some water first.”
“Tell me right now, Grey!”
He groans and falls onto his back, like he’s been shot. “The leprechauns are at it again!” he exclaims, holding his head with a pained expression. I know he’s just doing this to get me riled up. He got what he wanted.
“When I get back, you better be ready to tell me everything,” I tell him in my firm voice. He just continues his charade of being in pain, but I hope it’s not a charade. He deserves it—this—after what he did to me.
I leave him in the room and press my head against the door. I stay here, with my head against the cold wood, for what feels like an eternity. I have to gather my thoughts before I return and blow up.
I let out a calculated sigh and push off the door and pad into the kitchen. My face scrunches up when I find bottles of alcohol and liquor cluttering the counters and even on the floor. Has Grey just been drinking himself to near-death?
I find a glass in one of the sleek, black cupboards and put it under the faucet after turning it on.
I don’t know what to think or how to act. He just sprung this on me without any warning. I thought I was done with him. I told him and myself that I was done with him. So what am I still doing here? I should just walk out of this loft and leave him gaping in pain. Give him a taste of his own medicine. A big part of me wants to see him hurt, but another part of me, the bigger part of me, wants him despite all he’s done to me.
I hate that part of me. I want to shut her off and listen to the smaller part that wants to see him writhing in pain, unable to sleep, too busy thinking about the person he felt so much for snap him in two like he didn’t mean anything.
I didn’t know the cup was spilling over until it becomes too heavy for me to hold and falls, shattering into big pieces in the sink. I curse under my breath and turn off the water. I try to pick up a piece to throw in the trash but end up cutting my right hand.
“Crap!” I curse and wrench my hand back. Blood pours out of the wound, and I moan in pain, clutching my other hand against the semi-deep cut.
“Fuck! Why am I here?” I take out my anger and kick the counter, creating a loud banging sound that echoes through the air. I look around and find a kitchen rag hanging on the oven handle. I grab it and gingerly wrap it around my hand.
“What happened?” A groggy voice makes me turn around to find Grey wearing nothing but a pair of black boxers. His hair is tousled, and his eyes are bloodshot and wide as he looks at my bleeding hand. “Christ, Liv. How did you hurt yourself?”
“The glass slipped, and I cut myself when I tried to clean up the mess,” I explain and step back instinctively when he steps over to me. I’m still angry at him for lying to me, and he has yet to explain himself to me. “Do you have a first aid kit?”
“Yeah, I’ll go get it. Stay here.” He sounds and looks hurt, but I look away and nod to myself. I listen to him let out a breath before rushing away to the bathroom.
He returns with a first aid kit and sets it aside. Before I can even react, he picks me up and sets me on the counter.
“I could have sat on a kitchen stool,” I point out and he scoffs.
“And let you bleed out? We need to get this bandaged right now,” he replies.
“I’m not going to die, Grey,” I say with a sigh, watching with curiosity as he uncaps an alcohol bottle. Speaking of which, “Why are there so many alcohol bottles around? There’s enough to open a bar in here.”
He doesn’t say anything for a while. “I felt like drinking.”
“Why?” My words are cut off when he suddenly blots my hand using a cotton ball coated with alcohol. The pain stings horribly. I suck in my bottom lip and bite so hard, I think I draw blood. Why am I bleeding so much around him?
“Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes rapidly, and I look up to find his dark eyes searching for mine. I look away, feeling my cheeks spark with heat.
It is silent as he disinfects the wound, puts a gauze on it, and then gently secures it with a bandage. I watch with fascination at how sweet he can be. Too bad it can easily be overshadowed by his dark side. But in this moment, I want to revel in his gentle touch and concentration on taking care of me.
“What about the earring I found after you left? It was Diana’s. And the lipstick residue on your lips…Grey, you can’t deny that you left me that night to be with her.” I can hear my heart fracture as I speak.
He sighs and shakes his head. “I know how bad it looked, but I swear I didn’t sleep with her. I just—that night I felt something so strong for you, I knew I just wanted you. And to have you, I knew I had to break things off with Diana. So I went over to her place and broke things off with her. She doesn’t like being let down, like, at all, and she kissed me and tried to move things further, but the moment her lips touched me, I pushed her off and raced back over to you. I guess she put her earring on me to try and ruin things between you and me. I knew she could be evil, but not that evil. You have to believe me.”
I take a deep breath and look away to get my thoughts together. It’s plausible, and it does sound like something that horrible girl would do. But it doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t just tell me that. I asked him about the lipstick. I gave him the benefit of the doubt about the earring, yet he didn’t clear things up. If he did, he would have saved me all this heartache.
“Why did you lie to me, Grey?” I ask when he finishes wrapping the bandage around me, pressing the Velcro part down. His hands firmly clasp around mine, and he stays silent. He closes his eyes and moves his hands so they’re gripping the edges of the counter, locking me in. “We were doing so well, and—”
“Because I am not capable of loving,” he cuts me off, and I frown in confusion.
“What?”
He looks up with a pained expression, like he’s the hurt one. “Rose said the same thing to me the night everything went to shit between us. And when your mother said that to me, I—I just lost it. I didn’t think I could be what you needed, so I pushed you away and went back to Diana. I tried to fool around with her, to forget about my feelings for you, but I couldn’t. You were all I could think about. She’s a bitch, though, so I’m not surprised she rubbed the idea that something has been going on between us in your face. But I did really care about you, and I still do.”
I don’t say anything but stare at him. I can’t believe him. He let me believe he was having sex and messing with her to purposefully hurt me, and he didn’t? I’ve been so mad at him, and for no reason except for the fact that he broke my heart. I thought he didn’t care about me, but he does.
In his own crazy way, he cares about me. He just has the worst way of showing it.
“Say something, Liv,” he pleads.
“Get away from me,” I say, in a low tone.
He looks taken aback. “What?”
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“I said to get the fuck away from me.” I use my foot and kick him away when he doesn’t immediately move. He looks at me like I’m crazy when I jump down to my feet and storm over to the elevator. I press the button, keeping my back to him as I wait for the metal shaft to come up to the floor.
“Where are you going?” he asks incredulously, turning me around. I swat at his hand and scowl at him. “I thought this would fix things between us.” He sounds confused. He’s crazier than I thought he was.
“Why would I want to be with a crazy person who lies about sleeping with another girl and hurts me? You could have easily talked to me the day my mother showed up at the dorm last week. But instead of doing what any sane person would do, you allowed me to think the worst and pushed me away. If that’s all you’re going to do if we’re serious or anything at all, then why the hell would I deal with it when I can push my damn self away and save myself the extra heartache?” I rant until I end up panting for breath.
I feel like I’m going around in circles. We are going around in circles. And I just want this to stop. I don’t think he’s worth the pain…
“Can you honestly tell me you don’t care about me?” he says in exhaustion, his shoulders slumping.
I cross my arms and glance at him. “Yes…” No, but I have to protect myself from his bullshit. I can’t deal with the back and forth.
He steps forward, and I take one back until I’m against the brick wall. He’s a few inches from me and holds my eyes with an intense gaze that makes my stomach twist and turn. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t care about me.”
I face him with conviction but end up cursing at myself and telling him, “I…I do care about you, but I can’t do this. This constant lying and pushing me away will drive me insane, and I want nothing to do with it.”
The elevator doors open, and I take a step toward it, but he pulls me back and puts his hands on either side of the wall, trapping me.
“Let me go, Grey,” I tell him, trying to stabilize my shaky voice.
“No,” he says. Why is he being so damn stubborn?
“I thought you cared about me. You just told me you did. You keeping me against my will hurts me. You continuously pushing me away hurts me.”
“I don’t mean to hurt you,” he whines.
“Yet you do it anyway!” I scream, unable to contain my growing anger.
I turn my head and try to get on the elevator, but he pulls me back, reaches inside, taps a button, and presses me against the wall. I watch in annoyance as the door closes.
“What the hell did you do that for?” I shout and push against him but end up wincing in pain because of my injured hand.
“I fucking want you, but you’re being so god damn stubborn.” He visibly grinds his teeth.
I scoff and laugh at this ridiculous situation. “Oh, yes, you want me. This so looks like you wanting me.”
“I do. Just—just let me fucking like you, please!” He sounds frustrated.
“No! You’ll only hurt me!” I yell back.
“Have some fucking faith in me!”
“How can I when the last time I did, you broke my heart?”
We’re basically just screaming at each other now.
“I—” He stops himself and steps away, almost stumbling down. I watch in confusion as he sighs and walks back into the kitchen, falling onto a kitchen stool. “I need a drink,” he says and grabs a brown bottle and twists off the top before tipping it back, along with his head.
“No, you’re already drunk.” I walk over to him and try to take the bottle away from him. What he needs is to sleep this off. I can see how sluggish he has become. So sluggish that I’m able to grab the bottle and hold it away from him. He normally has quicker reflexes.
“Give it back to me,” he cries out, moaning like a baby as I place it under the counter in a cupboard.
“Why should I? This isn’t healthy. You already almost got beat up at the bar,” I remind him, eyeing the dried blood on the corner of his lips. I rip a piece of paper towel and place it under the faucet, then use the wet towel to wipe at his mouth corner.
“If you’re not going to take me back, then this is all I have.” He gestures around the bottle-cluttered room.
“I just don’t want to get hurt again. You have to understand that,” I tell him in a soft voice as I rub the paper against his skin. The paper grows red in color, and he stares at me in silence.
“I just want to love you.” I freeze at the word love. I have to remind myself that he’s just drunk.
“You can’t love someone you hurt repeatedly.”
“Love is all about hurt. Pain. Complications. It means there are real emotions involved, not some bullshit high school romance that lasts a week.”
“Got pain right. And complications. But I don’t want to deal with them every time you decide to be cold and confusing,” I tell him. He rolls his eyes but nuzzles his face in my neck.
“Just take me back,” he mumbles.
“No, Grey.”
He makes a horrendous sound, and the next thing I know I’m on the counter, and he’s looking up at me. “I want you…why don’t you fucking want me?”
I hate how sad he sounds. But he’s drunk, which means tomorrow he’ll probably go back to ignoring me and making me cry. Unfortunately, this soft side will not last.
“Because you only hurt me,” I tell him and push against his hands that are clamped around me. “Let go of me, Grey.”
“No…kiss me first, then I will. Take me back and I’ll be better, so much better. I’ll stop drinking and—and we can be whatever you want. I just need you in my life.”
“This sounds promising, but I know you’ll only change your mind tomorrow.”
“No, I won’t,” he slurs, laying his head in my lap.
I let out a sigh. “How about I get you to bed and I think about it, huh?” We can go back and forth with the way he’s slurring and rambling, but I want to sleep. I’m tired. I’ll sleep on the couch out here. I don’t quite know this neighborhood enough to walk through it by myself to get back to the dorms.
“Mm-kay.” He nods his head, and I sigh again before gently picking up his head and hopping down from the counter. I pull him off the stool and drag him back into his bedroom. He falls face first onto the comforter again, and I can’t help but smile at him.
I pull the sheets over his body and turn off the light. Before I can leave the bedroom, he calls out in the softest voice that sends a wave of adoration within me, “Stay with me.”
“I don’t think that’d be the smartest idea, Grey,” I tell him, turning around to find him peeking at me from above the thick comforter, his black eyes piercing through the dark with an unknown glint to them.
“Please, Princess…” he begs.
Every wall I had built to protect my weak heart shatters. I shouldn’t even be considering this, but how can I leave when he looks so…helpless, so defenseless? It’s just one night. It doesn’t mean anything. After this, I can officially move on from this crazy man and focus on what is truly important.
I pad over to the bed after switching off the light and kick off my shoes before sliding under the covers. But I plant myself as far from him as possible, so two other people can fit between us, maybe even three.
“Too far,” he whines, his eyes still closed.
“Too bad,” I say and close my eyes. “Goodnight, Grey.”
After a while, I feel him sneak over to me and wrap his arms around me, but I don’t protest. I am so wrapped up in the overwhelming feeling of home he offers and the familiar feel of his arms around me and the bittersweet smell of cigarettes and fruit, that I don’t even try to wriggle away.
I let myself drift off to sleep with the images of dancing leprechauns and black eyes watching me replaying in my head.
Chapter Forty-Nine
My body feels energized and awake before my eyes even open. A soft touch lingers on my thighs that covers my body in warmth
and tingles. A smile caresses my face as I snuggle deeper into the sheets that are at my waist. I let out a contented sigh when I feel the core between my thighs quiver, and I gasp in excitement. What the hell is going on?
I lose my smile and slowly open my eyes. My vision is blurry for a few seconds before I finally look down. There is a lump formed under the sheets, below my waist.
I let out a scream and throw the sheets back. Grey is between my legs, with my underwear pushed to the side. He looks up at me with an annoyed look, his eyes narrowed and bloodshot, his hair a complete mess. He is shirtless, and my pants are not on my body where I last saw them.
“What the hell are you doing?” I screech, scrambling up against the headboard.
“I was pleasuring you before you freaked out,” he says, sitting on his knees with a slump to his shoulders. “I thought it’d help you decide to give me another chance…” Is he actually insane?
“You can’t just do…that and expect me to forgive you.” I pull my legs away from his hands and stand. I grab my pants and shove my legs through them. He has officially lost his mind. I stretch out my aching bones from being spooned against his hard body and let out strings of yawns before I am suddenly yanked back onto the bed.
“Grey!” I shout when he begins to tickle me, and I begin to laugh uncontrollably. What is wrong with him? “Get off of me! T-this won’t help anything!” I push my hands against his chest and cry out in serious pain. I forgot about my hand.
He immediately stops and gently takes my hand in his. “I’m sorry, but can you not yell at me? My head is on fire.” He rubs his nose bridge, and I look around.
“I am so confused as to what is happening.” I rip my hand from his and run it across my face as I try to gather my blurry thoughts. “You can’t just perform oral sex on me and tickle me and think that everything will go poof in the air, and all will be forgotten. That’s not how this works,” I say, exasperated. I give him a pointed look before walking out of the room.
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