He leaned back on the couch with his arms crossed over his chest, his features composed except for the clenching of his jaw. “Good to know. Why don’t you tell me what did happen?”
“Look, I’m really sorry,” I pleaded, a jumble of words suddenly tumbling from my lips. “For all of it. I messed up. You became my comfort zone because we always kept things simple. When Liv came along and things started to change, I didn’t know how to handle it. I felt so confused; I can see now that I was angry at both of you, really, for forcing me to make changes I didn’t want to make. But at the time, I thought I felt something for you and tried to fight for you.”
As his brows drew together in a frown, I hurriedly added, “But I know now that…well…it just wasn’t what I thought it was. I know now it wasn’t love. And I know what I did was wrong. I was losing control and I needed something to cling to, so I used that whole situation…I used you. God, this is all coming out wrong,” I sighed, trying to figure out how to explain it all in a way that didn’t involve me becoming a babbling idiot.
But there was nothing to figure out. I just needed to do what was right, which simply meant telling him the truth. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, blowing it out harshly. Squaring my shoulders, I forced myself to look him in the eye.
“Okay. Here it is. You were out cold when I got to your place, totally passed out,” I continued, gaining a modicum of confidence. “And you didn’t wake up until morning. All we did was sleep in the same bed and not because you wanted to. You were basically comatose, Logan…you had no choice in the matter. I’m the one who forced it. But I promise you, nothing else happened. When you woke up and kissed me, I thought you had finally come around. That I had won. But you only did that because…you didn’t know. You thought I was her. I was reeling from the rejection when she showed up at your door. I felt humiliated so when I heard you talking to her downstairs, I made sure she saw me. I mean…I knew what she’d think.” I gulped and forced out my next words. “And I knew you couldn’t deny it.”
He absorbed it all for a moment, his unfocused gaze drifting over my shoulder as he, no doubt, was reliving the horror of not only losing Liv but, even worse, thinking that he must have deserved it. Just as quickly, he nodded as if accepting my explanation. When he did, relief shone in his eyes and I could practically see the burden lifting off his shoulders.
“I’m so sorry, Logan,” I continued, my voice thick as my throat tightened and I felt my composure start to crumble. “I never meant to hurt you. I was just…selfish. And scared. I still remember what you said that morning about love and what happens when it’s real. That when it’s real, you stop being selfish. I didn’t get it before, but...” I sucked in a harsh breath as I thought of Matt and the look of devastation in his eyes when I told him, just a few moments ago, not to follow me. “I get it now.”
Logan stood up and took a couple of steps toward me, pausing as he rubbed a hand along his jaw and over the back of his neck, as if he, too, was struggling to find the right words. With his head still tilted down, he looked up at me, his expression solemn. “You’ve got a lot to answer for, you know,” he said flatly. “Not just for lying to me and giving Liv the wrong idea. But that other night…You slapped her, Chloe.”
“I know. I really fucked up and I’m so sorry,” I sighed. “I just hope someday you both can forgive me for…being a complete mess.”
He arched a brow and said nothing, but the first hint of a smile tilted the corner of his mouth.
“Okay,” I said, “for being a complete asshole.”
With that, the energy in the room shifted, softening to something more familiar. His voice was low as he offered a simple, “Thank you, Chloe.”
I shook my head, bowing it down in utter shame. “God, don’t thank me. That’s the last thing I deserve.”
I turned to leave, but he took my wrist to stop me. “Hey.”
I looked back at him, confused, as he gave my wrist a quick squeeze.
Chapter Two
~Matt~
Just like that, she was gone. I stood there for I don’t know how long, just staring at the bedroom floor, wondering what the fuck had just happened. Twenty minutes ago, Chloe and I were connecting on a level I had never experienced before…ever…with anyone. We were so in-sync. Before that damn doorbell rang, I was so sure I had made a breakthrough with her.
She had been about to admit that she loved me, or at the very least, that she was falling for me. Likewise, I would have admitted the same. Then we’d figure our shit out and move forward. Together.
What I had envisioned sure as hell didn’t end with her leaving me.
I heard muffled voices downstairs. Chloe’s voice. Logan’s voice. But I was in too much of a state of shock to register what was being said because her words to me played on repeat, creating a wretched mantra in my mind.
I’m not yours to lose.
I never was.
Well, fuck me.
The slamming of the front door snapped me out of my reverie with a jolt. And snap, I did. In fact, I damn near lost my shit because, in that moment, the closing of that door meant losing her and the end of us.
After everything that had happened, after everything we had gone through together…she left me. Us. My grief stepped aside, anger took its place, and I saw nothing but red.
The thing about rage is that you don’t always know it’s happening until it’s over. Not entirely anyway.
Heat rose from my chest to my face, and my heart began to pound viciously, my teeth and fists clenching tight. Blinded by fury—because, let’s face it, anger is a hell of a lot easier than pain—I grabbed the wooden desk chair, raised it over my head, and sent it hurtling to the floor. It burst apart on impact, broken spindles and shards of wood flying everywhere.
“Fuuuucccckkk!” I yelled at the ceiling, fists clenched tightly, ready to swing at something…anything. Lost in a storm of confusion and hurt, I pounded my right fist into the wall again and again, oblivious to the fact that I was doing more damage to my knuckles than to the wall.
I paced, shaking out my injured hand before cradling it in my other hand with a frustrated growl. Damn, that hurt. But not enough. Not enough to take away the anguish that was rolling through my body…my soul…my goddamn bleeding heart.
Unsatisfied with the damage that I had already done, I went for a big finish by clearing the contents from the top of my desk with one violent sweep of my arm. The computer monitor was ripped from its wires, smashing to pieces at my feet. Pens and pencils scattered, and the brass desk lamp careened across the floor in a series of heavy clunks.
My chest heaving, I pressed the palms of my hands to my eyes and fought for air. I lowered my hands and took in the mess I had just made. As the eruption of rage and grief gradually eased, the pain in my knuckles intensified until, finally, I collapsed to my knees, hanging my head in absolute defeat.
She gave up on us. Just walked away.
The onslaught of emotions continued to wreak havoc on me. My eyes stung. My head felt like it was in a vice. Heat flared on my cheeks. Sweat beaded on my forehead. I was about to break down and cry like a little pussy…until a hand on my shoulder urged me back to reality.
“Dude,” Logan said simply as he took in the aftermath of my meltdown.
“Yeah. I know,” I replied with a huff, thankful for the diversion while giving zero fucks about the mess.
“I’ve never seen you like this, man,” he continued, shuffling through the impressive debris field I had created in a matter of seconds.
He was right. Never in my life had I ever been consumed by rage like that. But then again, I had never been in love the way I loved Chloe. The outburst was just a pitiful attempt at covering up the devastation Chloe had left in her wake. But it hadn’t done a bit of good. The more you loved someone, the higher the stakes, the bigger the risk. And when you lost what meant the most, you stood a good chance of going bat-shit crazy.
“She’s gone,” I muttere
d hoarsely, as if he didn’t already know. “For good.”
Saying it out loud only made it worse, only made my chest constrict tighter and my stomach twist into rigid knots.
He reached down to pick up the lamp, brushed it off, and set it back on the desk. He took deliberate care as he straightened the lamp shade, seeming to choose his next words carefully.
“She ‘fessed up, you know,” he said.
I sighed and lifted myself up from my knees, taking another look around at the mayhem I had created. “What do you mean she ‘fessed up’?”
I walked over to the window Chloe and I had stood in front of only minutes ago. There she was, on the sidewalk below, watching the family next door make snow angels on the ground in front of their house. What was she doing, just standing there, watching them like that? Did she know them?
Fuck.
She didn’t have a way home. I brought her here in my truck. She told me not to follow her, but no way in hell was I going to let her walk home in the dead of winter.
“She admitted everything,” Logan said. “That morning, when you saw her leave my apartment? She lied, man. She admitted that nothing happened between the two of us that night.”
“Good for her,” I replied as I took my cell phone from the nightstand and opened my Uber app, lost in my own thoughts as I requested a driver.
“That’s got to be worth something.” Logan’s voice practically dripped with pity. Normally, having that kind of tone directed at me would piss me off. But I was too preoccupied to give a shit.
My eyes shifted from my phone to Chloe and back again. When my request for a ride was accepted and I found out that the Uber driver was only four minutes away, I felt a modicum of relief.
Chloe wouldn’t have to stay out in the cold much longer.
I kept my eyes on her, taking her in for the last time, tormented by the knowledge that I’d never run my fingers through her hair again. Never touch her face. Never move inside her again, never feel her warm skin pressed against my chest.
“Matt!” Logan called out a louder this time.
“What do you want me to say?” I retorted sharply. “Look, I’m happy that you got some closure, I really am. But am I supposed to be proud of her? She just got done playing me.” I finally tore myself away from the window, away from her, and stepped toward him. I looked him in the eye, jabbing my finger into his chest. “Just like she played you.”
He tilted his head. “You sure about that, man?”
“Yeah,” I huffed out a humorless laugh. I dialed the Uber driver’s phone number and waited for him…or her…to pick up. Looking back at Logan, I finished my thought. “I’m pretty fucking sure.”
“Hello?” a woman answered. Thank Christ. Knowing that it was a woman eased my mind slightly. Chloe had made it pretty damn clear that she didn’t want me the way I wanted her, and I had no idea if that meant she’d continue her promiscuous ways. Most likely, she would. After all, I had become exactly what I feared I’d be to her…just another number. She was done with me and probably already moving on to the next. It would damn near kill me if I saw her with another man any time soon, even if it was only an Uber driver.
“Yeah,” I replied into the phone. “This is going to sound strange, but the person you’ll be picking up didn’t request the ride, so she might not want it. She might even put up a fight about accepting it. I’ll pay you either way but just be prepared for some resistance.”
“Uh—” the woman said cautiously. “Sorry, buddy, I’m not—”
“However,” I cut her off knowing that once she heard my offer, she’d be happy to comply. “If you can persuade her to let you take her home, I’ll give you a fifty-dollar tip.”
After a brief pause, she countered, “Make it seventy-five, and you’ve got a deal.”
“The fuck?” My face contorted into confusion, as I pulled the phone from my ear briefly to glare at it. “Are you haggling with me right now?”
“Hey, I’ve got bills to pay. I didn’t ask to be part of your drama. Take it or leave it.”
Fuck this day.
Fuck this driver. Hell, fuck Uber.
Fuck this shit.
“Fine,” I replied through clenched teeth. “You’ll be looking for a woman with blonde and pink hair. She’s… She’s beautiful. Can’t miss her. Make it happen.”
Without pressing the ‘end’ button, I whipped the phone across the room like a skipping stone, not giving a fuck where it landed. Logan caught it like a damn ninja. He looked at the phone as if he couldn’t believe his own reflexes, and then raised his brows at me. “Are you done now? Or do you need to smash more shit?”
I shrugged. I kind of wanted to smash more shit, but I had already caused enough damage. “Nah. I’m good.”
“You sure? Because I bet we can find some scrap metal at the shop to smash if you want to.”
I shook my head and looked around at the mess, wondering where to even start with the clean-up.
“You have to admit,” he continued smugly. “That catch was pretty fucking awesome.”
A small bit of my tension subsided as I gave him a nod. “It was alright.”
“Alright, my ass,” he laughed, displaying the phone in front of his face. “This thing had to have been flying at eighty miles per hour at least. Another time and another place, my man, and you’d be freaking the fuck out over my kick-ass Kung Fu moves.”
I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. Thank God Logan was here to keep me from losing myself in the whys and hows of this disastrous morning.
“I admit,” I said, “it was a nice save. Thank you for not letting me kill my phone.”
“You’re welcome,” he responded as he tossed the phone back to me. I caught it and slipped it into my back pocket.
A broom. I needed a broom. I trudged down the steps, Logan following behind me.
“What if Chloe didn’t…play you?” he asked, catching me off guard. Until this morning, I had always been the one defending her. Now, it was him—the most unlikely of people, considering their history—giving her the benefit of the doubt.
I stopped in the middle of the stairs and turned toward him. “Are you fucking with me right now?”
“Just hear me out.”
“Okay,” I replied, crossing my arms and leaning my back against the wall. “Say what you need to say.”
“Remember that night, about a week or two after you came back from Afghanistan, and we were at your brother’s place playing poker and getting shit-faced?”
“Not really,” I replied honestly. “That was the same day that I saw Maya at the jeweler with her fiancé, husband, whatever. My only mission that night was to drink myself into oblivion. I do believe I conquered that mission because the last thing I remember is taking my seventh shot of tequila.”
“Yeah,” Logan chuckled. “Followed by your third time falling backward off your chair onto your ass.”
I shrugged, “I did win that hand, though, with a royal flush, Sucka.”
“Need I remind you that you played for shit after that? Dylan and I won our money back twofold in the next few hands.”
“Doesn’t matter. It was my first and only royal flush,” I bragged, tapping my pointer finger on my temple. “It’ll forever be in these memory banks as the only good thing that happened that day. And you’re wrong about winning back your cash. I specifically remember breaking even.”
“That’s because we took pity on you. Dylan didn’t have the heart to clean you out the same day you had your heart broken and neither did I, so we gave it back after you crashed.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said, irritated. Being pitied was worse than losing cash any day.
“You would’ve done the same for me.”
I nodded in agreement. He was right. “Tequila sounds pretty damn good right about now. You in?”
“It’s, like, nine a.m.”
“Call it a special occasion.” It’s not every day that a man gets his hear
t ripped from his chest while it’s still beating.
He shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. Why not.”
We walked down the rest of the stairs and to the kitchen. As I passed the refrigerator and remembered what Chloe and I had been doing against it before Logan got here, my chest tightened. Knowing that I wouldn’t be pressing her against it ever again made me want her more than ever.
I pulled a bottle of Patrón and two shot glasses from the top cupboard shelf.
“What does that night have to do with anything anyway?” I asked, continuing our conversation as I poured the shots.
Logan leaned against the counter. “Do you remember what you told us that night? About Maya and why you left her to join the Army?”
“Yeah.” I picked up the two glasses and handed one to Logan. “I was trying to do what was best for her. She needed a stand-up guy who could take care of her. Someone who could provide for her. And that sure as hell wasn’t me at the time. I mean, I lived in my parents’ basement, for chrissake. I didn’t even have a job. Didn’t have a future. She deserved better than that, so I did the only thing I could think of to become the man she needed.”
Logan stared at me expectantly, as if waiting for the revelation to hit me. And finally, it did.
“Shit. I left her.”
“Just like Chloe left you today. I never expected her to fess up to me the way she did this morning. And the way she said it—the things she said to me—let’s just say that, maybe for the first time, she was thinking of more than just herself. It would never have occurred to the old Chloe that a world existed beyond her own wants and needs. Who knows, Matt, maybe she’s changing. It’s obvious she has feelings for you. I just think she’s in the same position now that you were in when you left Maya.”
As the wheels in my mind processed this information, hope rose in my heart. Maybe Logan was right and Chloe just wasn’t ready for us yet. Frankly, I felt more than ready to be with her, but even I had to admit that the timing sucked. If we took on the pressure of a new, committed relationship at this point in the game, there was no doubt in my mind that it would inevitably fail.
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