Page 43 of Clubs

“Almost two years together,” I snapped. “Two god damned years, and not once have you shown me an ounce of vulnerability.”

“Two nights ago, a body was found outside of your bar. A woman was murdered, and this is what you’re worried about? My emotional vulnerability, that’s your concern?! Calling me crazy, telling me that I’m a psychopath, that’s your priority at the moment. Not, I don’t know, the living nightmare that’s raining down around us?!” She was yelling now, too, and everyone in the bar had turned to see.

Granted, it was early. There were only half a dozen people here, and most of them had seen something like this before, but I wasn’t in the mood to fight. I wasn’t in the mood for any of this shit.

She kept yelling though, and I started walking away. “This has nothing to do with me, and you know it. You’re just mad, you’re taking it out on me, and that’s not fair—”

“You know what’s not fair?!” I spun to face her, nearly at the hall toward the office now. “The fact that I tell you I love you every single day, and you haven’t said it to me once.”

Eyes wide, she shook her head. “That’s not true. You know I do. I tell you how much you mean to me all the time—”

“So now you’re going to try and make me think that I’m crazy?!” I gestured toward Emory at the other end of the bar. “Him and your sister have a bet. How much money is on it, I don’t know, but they had a bet on how long it’d take me to notice. Not once, Brooke. You haven’t told me you love me one single time.”

“That’s not true—”

“Then say it!” I flung my arms up. “Say it right now. Say, ‘I love you, Declan.’ Just fucking say it.”

Laughing again, she shook her head. “I can’t believe you think that I don’t love you.”

“Then why can’t you say it?”

Her mouth opened. No words came out. It lifted up and down, as if she just couldn’t form the words. Because she didn’t feel them, she couldn’t make them.

“That’s what I thought.” I turned back around. And suddenly, she was in front of me.

With her hands on my chest, face still screwed up in that combination of annoyance and pain, she shook her head. “I do. I do. I swear, I do.”

“Then why can’t you say it?”

Shaking her head again, I swore, for half a second, there were tears in those eyes. And I almost felt guilty. Like this was somehow my fault. Like I hadn’t gotten to this point because time and time again, she had made me feel like I didn’t matter. Like our life together, if we even had one, didn’t matter.

Then again, what life together? She was the biggest part of mine, and I was northing more than a speck in hers.

“Because you won’t let me in. Because the moment there is an opportunity to show an ounce of vulnerability, you shove it away. God forbid you have feelings. God forbid you care about somebody. I’ve shown you not once, not twice, but a thousand times, how much you mean to me. I’ve been there for you through any and everything. And you can’t even tell me you love me? Because you don’t. You fucking don’t, Brooke. I don’t matter to you. You’re stuck with me because of the soulmate shit, so you deal with me, but you don’t fucking want me.”

I was sure this time. There were tears in her eyes.

“That’s not true.”

“Bullshit,” I snapped. “Fucking bullshit.”

Spinning around again, I started toward the back door. It was the quickest way to get to my house behind the bar. And I was really hoping she would stay where she was, but she was right behind me.

“Declan, stop it.” Her voice trembled. And I hated that it made my chest warm. Not because I wanted her to be in pain, but because that may have been the first time since I met her that she showed me an ounce of emotion, that she showed me that she actually cared whether I stayed or went. That the possibility of losing me, that watching me walk away, hurt.

Really, hurting her was the last thing I wanted. But, god damn it, I was tired of bashing my head off the wall. I was tired of giving her everything in this relationship and getting nothing for it. I wanted her attention, good or bad. I wanted to see her feel something, anything, for me. Because after that performance with Tyler, I was convinced she didn’t. I was convinced none of it had been real.

She kept calling out to me, but I didn’t say a word. Not until we were at the door, and she said, “What am I doing wrong?”

In a trembling voice yanking open the door, I shot her a look over my shoulder. “I just told you.”

“I’m with you every day,” she said, lifting her hands to either side of her head and grabbing fistfuls of hair. “I make you dinner. I see something at the store that reminds me of you, and I get it. I fight with you, I know that, but you do it, too. You’re doing it right now. I’m not perfect, and I’ve never claimed to be, but you’re the center of my world, Declan. Outside of my job, and Ria, you are all I have. You’re the only one who sticks around, the only one I can count on, and I try to be that for you, too.” Her voice cracked again. “Am I not? Am I not what you want? Am I not what you need? What am I doing wrong? Because I don’t understand. I don’t understand, Declan. I don’t know what else I can do. I don’t know how to show you how much you mean to me.”

“An ounce of vulnerability. Just a fucking drop, Brooke. Tell me what’s going on in your head. Don’t make me break into your mind to see it. Talk to me. Fucking communicate. For once, just once, act like I mean as much to you as you do to me. Because the only time I feel like I even matter is when I’m fucking you. That’s the only time you show me the slightest bit of fucking vulnerability.”

She laughed again, but this one was more genuine and less sarcastic. “And since when has that been a problem for you? Last time I checked, you’re the one who initiates ninety-nine percent of the time. You’re the one who starts fights with me just so you can rail me, and now what? You’re going to make me feel like a dirty slut for that? Because I like fucking you? In case you forgot, that’s how our relationship started—”

“And that’s the only time you let your walls down.” We were in the threshold now, the door still open behind her. Only a foot or two apart, I wagged my finger in her face. “I wasn’t calling you a slut. If you want me to, I will. You know I will. But don’t spin this around into something that it isn’t. I’m not shaming you for a god damned thing aside from your emotionally unavailability.”

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