Page 91 of Smith

“We’re rolling out at oh-three-hundred. Putting us at his door at four-hundred.”

I didn’t have anything to say about that and at this point small talk seemed awkward so I fell silent.

So did Smith.

We still had ten minutes left on the drive and every second of those ten minutes made the knots in my stomach multiply.

The relief I felt when Smith pulled into my driveway was palpable. I wanted out of the confines of his truck. I wanted the familiarity of my surroundings when I confronted Smith on the change in his behavior.

That relief went up in a blaze of ash when we entered my house and Smith flipped the script and immediately laid it out for me before I could pluck up the courage to broach the subject.

I hadn’t had a chance to prepare and fortify my heart.

I hadn’t even tossed my purse on the couch.

“I should’ve talked to you this morning. I thought I was doing the right thing, not making something out of nothing by dragging us into a conversation. That was a dick thing to do and I’m sorry. We’ve been straight with each other. I should’ve had a mind to that and just told you we need to shift to friends. If you want, tonight we can stay here. I’ll take the couch and in the morning, Jonas can swing by and pick me up. Tomorrow we canmeet at my place and you can grab your stuff or I’ll bring it over when you’re done with work.”

There it was, the brush off.

The end I knew was coming.

The worst part, the part that killed, was he didn’t sound like himself. He’d never, not even this morning after he’d checked out and I knew he was pushing me away, had he sounded so empty. Like he could care less. Like the words he’d spoken meant nothing to him.

“Why?”

Smith’s shoulders jerked back like he’d been shoved but I stood five feet away from him. Distance he’d put between when he walked into my living room and rounded the couch.

Physicalandemotional distance.

“Why?” he parroted.

“Yeah, Smith, why now?”

I’d been around military men and women my whole life and never had I seen one who could totally and completely close off their feelings as well as Smith. Not a tic, not a flex, not a clench, not a muscle moved. The pulse point in his neck didn’t even jump.

“I told you?—”

“I know what you told me. And you know that’s not what we’re talking about. I’m asking why. Why now? What, you’re bored of me already?”

Nothing.

No reaction.

“So that’s it, you’re bored of me,” I pushed.

Still nothing.

God, infuriating.

“In the beginning you gave your warning. And in return I gave you a stipulation, the one thing I demanded was respect. Yet there you stand.” I stopped to motion the length of him. “Inmyhouse pulling this bullshit. So much for saying it straight, Smith.”

“This doesn’t have to be ugly,” he calmly noted.

It was the calm in his voice that sent me over the edge.

I was totally going to fail my mission. Not because I wasn’t willing to stand toe-to-toe with Smith and fight for him. But I needed him to at least engage in the fight for me to win it. And he was giving me nothing.

Blank looks.

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