Page 23 of Fool's Gold

The realization penetrates the fog in my mind, but I can’t stop. Not once I’ve gotten started. And him squeezing my wrist harder only spurs me on. He hauls me off the couch, and I sway, balance iffy, my arm out to my side.

“You lie to me, you treat me like garbage, and you say it’s all because you want me to stay safe, but you know what? I don’t believe you anymore. You’re full of shit.”

“I never said I wasn’t,” Marcus replies, gnashing his teeth.

“I hate you.”

He stares at my outstretched arm with narrowed eyes and drags me against his chest, clamping his arms around me, the script fluttering to the floor. “I’m not going to let you fucking slap me.”

Is that what he thinks I’m going to do? He deserves it. It’s a great idea.

Except now my arms are banded to my sides, and I’m sweating in places I don’t need to sweat. Tears drip free, winding down my cheeks.

“Come on.” He shakes me, hauling me closer and practically flinging me down the hall.

“Let me go.” Just like the rant, once the tears start, they keep coming. My chest hitches, air refusing to get to the bottom of my lungs.

I’m hyperventilating, crying, ridiculously uncomfortable. Every step he takes jostles my insides, and he’s warm and powerful, and I want to crack. I want to break apart in his arms and fall to pieces, even though I have no idea if he’s going to collect them or not. He might just leave me there in a pile of tears and regret.

This nightmare is never going to end.

“Snap out of it, Empire. You’re fine. You can breathe.”

I can’t. Breathing is impossible. Not with the tightness in my chest like there’s a car parked on top of me. Not when my veins are sluggish, my head light, and every part of me aches.

I’ve got no clue where Marcus is going until one of his arms leaves my waist, and the distinctive sound of water joins the pounding of my pulse in my ears. He shakes me once, my gasp cut off on a hiccup.

“Wake up, Em. You’ve got to wake up. You’re going to end up hurting yourself.”

He’s angry. So am I. He’s also much calmer than I am because any shred of logic left my brain the further into the bottle of scotch I went. What did I find on my way to the bottom?

A whole lot of nothing.

He steps into the shower with both of us fully clothed.

I gasp when he sets me on my feet directly beneath the pulse of warm water. Warm, not hot, thankfully. I’d have puked for sure with hot water on my face.

There’s still a possibility of it, if only to make myself feel better, and I swallow as my gorge rises higher into my throat.

“Come on.” Marcus grabs my cheeks and lifts my face toward the spray, waiting until I sputter before he turns me away and wipes the strands of sopping hair away. “I can’t let you go on like this.”

I want him to stop touching me. I want him to touch me everywhere.

Amid my coughing, the world blurs together into a single spiral of movement and light, and there’s Marcus through it all. I catch glimpses of his shower through the haze of tears, but it isn’t what I expect.

The shower isn’t clinical or neat. Trays are lined with products he hasn’t used since coming to live with me in my parents’ house. Shelves are stocked with an assortment of body gels and shampoos.

He grabs one and squeezes a dollop into his hand, working it into a lather and running it through my hair. A sweet, spicy fragrance adds to the steam, something like pepper and pear. It’s impossible to tell when my nose has started to clog.

“Getting hysterical or drunk might feel good in the moment, but look where we are now,” he continues gently.

Look at where we are now… The same place we were an hour ago or two days ago. The same place we were when I found out he filed those papers and when social media exploited our relationship.

What a joke.

It’s nothing but a joke because we’ve done everything except have sex.

Marcus won’t allow it.

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