Page 11 of Alfie: Part Two

Right, but it was too late now. I was committed. I needed his reaction to it, because a gift like that would evoke his unfiltered honesty. That was what I was after. My initial sentiment about the gift was genuine. I’d simply wanted him to have it. But now, I…I couldn’t cope without something changing the status quo, and I was too chickenshit to do it myself.

I’d brought this misery upon myself. I’d left his house. I’d set boundaries. Respectable boundaries, in my opinion. Boundaries my mind was set to keep, whereas my heart wanted to flush them down the toilet.

I grabbed the box on the bed and walked out again.

I was an idiot. More than that, I was selfish and disrespectful and downright heartless, because this would undoubtedly trigger anger too. Rightfully so. He’d view it as my toying with his emotions.

Deep down, what I really wanted was for him to save me from myself.

Alfie waited for me around the corner, and he extended the smoke to me.

“Here,” I said. “I saw it in a store, wanted you to have it, ordered it, and…so, here.”

He had suspicion and weariness written all over him as he accepted the box. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what it was. I hadn’t gift-wrapped it, so the brand was embossed on the surface, and?—

“Vacheron…” He trailed off and shifted where he stood. “Are you fucking kidding me, West?” There was no heat to his question, only exhaustion.

I took a quick drag from the smoke, unable to speak.

“You don’t just see this kind of watch in a store,” he told me, lifting the lid. “You find it online and order it, usually for a CEO in the private sector who’s retiring after fifty years of making everyone rich.”

He trapped his smoke between his lips and picked up the leather pouch the watch came in, and he detached the strap.

“I did see it in a store,” I said. “In a catalogue picture they had on display.”

He rolled his eyes but said nothing.

I stubbed out my smoke and stashed it in the tailpiece of the drainpipe for later.

My nerves were officially shot, and if I spoke, emotional nonsense would fly out. I wasn’t much of a crier, but I’d reached my fucking limit for what I could handle. My stomach felt tight and unsettled, I couldn’t escape the pressure on my chest, and my eyes burned.

Alfie swallowed as he saw the watch, and without thinking, he dropped the smoke and put it out under his shoe.

Say something.

“No, you know what?” he said without looking away from the watch. “This is the kind of gift a wife gives a random cabana boy to piss off her cheating husband.”

His comment did something to the air around us, deflating it somehow, and it sucked the words out of me before I could think twice.

“That’s specific. But a cabana boy wouldn’t care about something so classy.”

“It’s probably the cheating husband’s favorite brand.” Alfie didn’t miss a beat, and he glanced up at me. “Who’re you tryna piss off, West?”

Wait, what?

“Nobody.” I frowned.

“Try again.” He pinned me with an intense stare I wasn’t sure I’d ever received before. “You don’t give someone a sixty-grand watch for nothin’. Are you fucking with me? I can think ofonegift you’d give your ex-husband, and it’s a Father’s Day present from the kids.”

The fact that he was in the right ballpark of what that watch cost put me on edge for some reason. I hadn’t expected him to expose me to that degree, and it threw me off.

“Happy early Father’s Day, then,” I replied stiffly.

“Quite the fuckin’ upgrade from the perfectly acceptablemugyou had them give me in June,” he snapped. “I guess I’ll tell them to choose something other than a tie for you next year? Maybe a yacht would be more appropriate? You have a birthday comin’ up too. You want a house in the Hamptons?”

I gnashed my teeth. “If it bothers you so much, I’ll return it?—”

“Fuck no! You gave it to me—it’s mine.” As he spoke, irritated and ever so unpredictable, he removed his old watch. “It’s mine. Put it on me.Fuckme, it’s breathtaking—butyou’reoff your damn rocker, West. Tell me why you gave me this.”

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