Page 8 of My Pucking Valentine

Shaking my head, I clear my throat and lie again. It seems to be all I can do tonight. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit,” Barbara snaps. “Clara literally ran out of that bar like her panties were on fire, and not in a fun way.”

I almost laugh at her description of Clara. Because she did indeed run out of the bar that way, and although I’ve been in said panties, she wasn’t leaving for a good reason. Instead of telling the girls what went down, I decide to brush it off in hopes of staying in denial. If I don’t think about it, maybe no light will be shed on the situation.

“It’s all good now, but I gotta get home and get some shut-eye. Early workout.”

Neither of them says anything, and I leave the house. It doesn’t take me long to get home, and the entire time I drive, I can’t get this evening off my mind. What the actual fuck happened?

When I pull into the driveway, I notice that Eli is home. We bought a small house in Parma a couple of years ago. I have the upstairs, and Eli has the basement. We share the kitchen. It works out perfectly for us, giving each of us our own space.

I unfold from the car and make my way into the house. It’s cold as fuck, and as I reach for the handle of my front door, I pause. It’s cold as fuck, and Clara walked home in this shit. There is still goddamn snow on the ground. And she was wearing the smallest dress imaginable.

A new wave of anger rolls through me, not at her, but at myself.

I’m not sure how much longer this can go on between us. I put her at fucking risk tonight in more ways than one. I didn’t protect her, and I fucking regret that shit with everything inside of me. I can’t protect her, can’t be with her the way I want, which is probably why I need to end this.

Eli is sitting at the small dining room table when I walk into the house. He’s got a bowl of cereal in front of him and lifts his gaze to meet mine when I close and lock the front door. Instead of ignoring him and heading upstairs to bed, I walk over and sink down in the chair across from him.

“What the fuck?” he asks.

“What?”

I try to appear as if I have no clue what he’s referring to and arch a brow as I wait for his response. He snorts, shaking his head a couple of times before he clears his throat and takes another bite of his cereal.

When he’s finished chewing, he continues. “You want to tell me where you disappeared to and then why you went running out of that bar?”

Damn.

He saw me.

I almost saynot really,but decide against it because Eli and I are similar, and I would not stop if the tables were turned, so I know he won’t either.

“Met someone,” I say with a shrug.

“Liar,” he snaps.

Leaning back in the chair, I decide to tell him some of the truth, but he doesn’t need it all. “The girl I’m seeing was there. You’re right. There is a woman. She was there with her friends. I went to her place for a few hours.”

Eli’s palm slams down against the tabletop, making the bowl and spoon rattle when he does. “I knew it,” he barks before he lets out a laugh. “I fucking knew you were banging someone.”

I cringe at the description, but at the same time, I can’t be too defensive, or he’ll know it’s serious. And I’m not sure it’s going to continue between Clara and me for much longer anyway, so there’s no point in clueing him in to the seriousness of my relationship with her.

“Now that you know, I’m going to bed,” I grunt.

He continues to chuckle as I straighten from the table and make a move to walk toward the bedroom, but I stop and turn to look at him over my shoulder when he calls out my name. He’s smiling like he just won some kind of fucking prize. What an ass.

“You do know that I’m going to get details during our workout tomorrow.”

Rolling my eyes to the ceiling, I don’t respond. I’m not giving him shit… and if I give him anything at all, it will be minimal and basic.

Eli is the kind of guy who will have all her socials up and be going through her ex-best friend’s, sister’s, and grandmother’s page before I even realize what he’s doing. I don’t know why he plays hockey when it’s clear he should have been in the FBI.

EIGHT

CLARA

It’s notthe fact that I’m sleeping alone or the cold air that’s definitely coming from the window beside me that wakes me up. No, it’s the loud whispering from the other side of my bedroom door.

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