Page 34 of What We Broke

I thought I’d seen every one of his looks there was to give, but this one is new.

This is disappointment.

Disappointment inme.

Shame prickles at the back of my eyes and coils in the pit of my stomach. It’s a familiar emotion, but one I haven’t felt often since my teens.

I reach him and he can barely look at me, and that alone feels like he’s shoved his hand inside my chest and ripped out a chunk of what’s left of my heart and threw it on the floor. It’s so hypocritical of me to be hurt when I’m the one doing the hurting. Constantly.

Wordlessly, he heads toward the exit and I just follow him, subtly looking around the parking lot for Gio and his car.

“Sorry,” he says, as we reach the car, disdain dripping from the single word. “He went home. I know I’m not the man you called to help you out or pick you up, but I’m what you got.”

“Jesse,” I breathe out, the plea in my voice obvious to both of us. But he doesn’t even glance up at me as he unlocks the car and climbs inside.

It’s not like I don’t deserve his hostility, but the role reversal is so unexpected. I’m stunned.

Opening the passenger door, I lower myself into the seat and try to think of something to say to him, but I have nothing.

The tension between us is so thick it’s suffocating, but I know I owe himsomething.

“Jesse,” I repeat.

“Don’t,” he grits out. “Don’t say my name like that. I do not want to hear you say my name without the anger and the hostility you’ve been slinging at me for a fucking year. Not tonight.”

I slouch into the car seat, the shame from earlier returning. He’s right. So right, but I don’t know what else to do. I don’t even know how to apologize.

What would I even be apologizing for? Tonight? Every night?

“What were you even doing?” he bellows, slamming his hand on the steering wheel. “Drinking and driving? Since fucking when, Leo? Self medicating is one thing, but you could’ve killed someone. You could’ve killed yourself.”

I don’t miss the hitch in his voice as the last statement leaves his mouth, and like a knife, the guilt cuts through my chest, deep and lasting.

“Jesse, please,” I cry.

Shaking his head, he turns on the car and concentrates on pulling out of the parking lot. He doesn’t want to hear it tonight, but I vow to myself that for the first time in a long time we will talk about it.

Fifteen minutes later, Jesse asks, “What did Gio’s attorney say?”

There was no doubt in my mind that Jesse had harassed every single police officer who came within a five-foot radius of him, asking what had happened, how they found me, if I was okay, and how long it would be till I came out and he could take me home.

But I knew none of their answers would appease him as much as hearing it all out of my own mouth.

“My car is at the impound,” I tell him. “And I have my hearing in two days. I’ll ask Gio to come with me,” I say quickly. “You don’t need to take a day off work.”

“Fuck that,” he grits out. “You’re my fucking husband. You need something, you ask me.”

When I don’t answer or argue, he quickly glances at me and then back at the road. “Why can’t you call me?” he asks, his voice now calmer. “Please, Leo, say something.”

“I know I’m a lot right now,” I admit. “I do have the decency and enough self-awareness to know that.”

“You’re mine,” he says with such finality. “You’remyworry,myheartache,myburden. Whateveryouthink you are, whatever season it is for us, you’re fuckingmine, Leo.”

It’s the most heartbreakingly romantic thing he’s said to me yet.

“We’ll go to the hearing together,” I say, surprising us both.

He purses his lips together and nods. “Now tell me why you were driving under the influence.”

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