Page 34 of Dropping Like Flies

“And yes, since you asked, it bothered me that the professor gave you his phone number. How could it not? You dumped me. Without a conversation. Without a proper explanation. The cruelest and most callous way possible. So I don’t need you rubbing my face in it. It’s bad enough that I have to feel you having sex.”

“That works both ways.”

I rounded on him again. “No. No, it doesn’t. Because you chose this. I didn’t. I’m the innocent party here.”

“I’m not going to call him.”

I laughed. If that’s what Griffin had taken from my entire tirade, then I really was wasting my breath. “Why? Because your boyfriend wouldn’t like it?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“No? Then who were you fucking the other night?”

“A friend. And you’re acting like you’ve been completely celibate, which we both know isn’t true.”

Just as I’d think I might calm down, Griffin would say something with such quiet and implacable logic, that my adrenaline would spike once more. Where was the passionate man I’d once known? The one who could enthuse over a good meal like it was a matter of life and death? The one who’d made love so beautifully that he’d made my toes curl. It was like looking at a stranger. Only with the added complication of the stupid necromancer fated mate’s bond dictating that stranger or not, I still wanted him with every fiber of my being.

“We’re not talking about me,” Griffin said, his voice still irritatingly calm and measured.

“Convenient,” I ground out.

“Us being at each other’s throats won’t help the case.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the case right now.”

“That’s not true. You’re just tired and overwrought.”

“Overwrought!” I gave a harsh laugh. “Don’t fucking talk down to me.”

“I’m not. I’m just…” He rounded the bed, and I watched him with a frown, trying to work out what he was doing. I realized as he kneeled. “Oh, right, of course… Have a drink. That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?”

He scowled at the tiny miniatures he’d pulled out of the fridge. His distaste wasn’t enough to stop him from unscrewing the lid of one and downing it in one swallow, my dig going completely ignored. Once he’d drunk it, he lifted his gaze to mine. “Have you finished?”

If he hadn’t said that, I might have been, but it was like a red rag to a bull. “What do you think Whitney would say if she knew how much you were drinking?”

The change in him was instantaneous, the mention of her name melting away the calm from Griffin like it was acid. “Don’t say her name.”

“I just did.” I knew what his next move would be, beating him to the door before he could run from the conversation and blocking his way.

“Get out of my way, Ben.”

“No!”

Griffin’s eyes blazed with fury. “Get out of my way or I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

“Punch me if you want to,” I goaded him. “But I’m done following your rules. Your sister died, Griff.” He reeled back, like I’d hit him. “Whitney died. She killed herself, and it wasn’t your fault. And it wasn’t my fault.”

“Please Ben.” Griffin had dropped the antagonism and was trying some good old-fashioned pleading instead. “Please get out of my way. I don’t want to talk about this. I can’t talk about this.”

“No.” I gripped him by the shoulders and forced him to look at me. “It wasn’t your fault. Whitney had been depressed for a while. You knew that.”

He shook his head. “I should have been there that night. I was supposed to be there that night.”

“I know.” And that was where my share of the perceived blame came into it, not only dragging him out for dinner when he’d shared his concern about Whitney being down in the dumps, but insisting when he’d mentioned going round to check on her that it could wait until the next day.

There hadn’t been a next day for Whitney, Griffin’s younger sister deciding that she’d rather swallow a bottle of pills than deal with the perpetual sadness that she hadn’t been able to shake, no matter how many medications she took, or how many therapists she saw.

“We were screwing,” Griffin said with bitterness in his voice. “And while we were in bed together, she was killing herself.”

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