Page 57 of Verses Of Us

“This is my life, Alexis, and I can’t step away from it whenever the mood strikes. I thought you got that.”

She remained quiet, staring out the window at the passing buildings.

After a few blocks, he sighed and took her hand. “Lex, please, say something.”

Carefully considering her next words, she watched him run his long fingers through hers and his thumb sweep over the ridge of her knuckles. These things she despised would need to come out.

“Sometimes, I don’t like being reminded of who you are.”

Slowly, his fingers lifted from her hand, as if touching her was painful. He pulled away. “And who exactly is that?”

“In my apartment, in my bed, you’re one guy. You’re this kind, careful person who acts… normal. A guy I could meet anywhere. But the minute we step out, you become…this.” She pointed to him with disgust.

He sneered, rolling his shoulders back. “You never seemed to mind it before.” The fire underlying his words seared her insides.

She knew she was wrongly aiming her disgust at him and should aim it at herself for being so gullible and for ending up right where she’d been years before. And why was she feeling this way? There were no promises or mixed signals. Ciarán had never led her to believe they were starting something deeper…

“Christ, Lex. I never thought you, of all people, could make me feel like such a piece of shit.” She gaped at him as he continued. “Those fans? They pay my bills. They let me takeyouout. So, how about you cut them, and me, some fucking slack?”

Ciarán sank into his seat, crossing his arms, anger rolling off of him in waves.

In the rear-view mirror, the cab driver threw them a watchful glare. “Alright back there?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ciarán replied.

“Actually, change of plans,” Alexis said. “Can you drive to 2656 Wittun?”

She turned her attention to the right, to the city passing by outside the window, to the couples holding hands, none of them preoccupied with issues like hers. As the solitude of her situation came crashing down, tears threatened to spill.

“Aren’t we going to the hotel?” Ciarán asked.

The cab driver glanced at them, waiting.

“It’s better if I went home.”

“Lex…” He slid across the seat, his hand snaking behind her head, his lips pressing against her temple. “We should talk.” He turned to the driver. “The Ritz, please.”

Though the driver nodded and made a turn, he kept watching them in the mirror.

Alexis longed to be anywhere, even locked in Ciarán’s hotel room, as long as she wasn’t in this tin can being gawked at, her privacy set on display.

Unable to escape the pain she sensed creeping in around her, she grew unsettled, as if on shaky ground. Panic struck. She’d been here before. And worried she wasn’t strong enough to pass through it again.

SHOULD I STAY OR…

Alexis

Thereflectionstaringbackat her in the hotel elevator doors made her feel strange. Her face was drawn, framed by a curtain of long hair, flat and no longer wavy from how she’d styled it that morning. Her dark jeans looked too tight and her white blouse was now wrinkled. But what bothered her the most was the way she leaned on Ciarán, as if weak and needing support. The view made her stomach cramp.

She hated how attached she found herself only days after being reunited. What they were doing was nothing more than indulging in unrequited feelings and curiosities, and it was idiotic of her to think it was deeper. Tofeelas if it were deeper.

Then why did she?

They reached the top floor. Ciarán extended his arm to hold the door open, letting her out first. Like an unwelcome passenger, the tension between them still lingered as they walked down the hallway. And when they stepped into his penthouse suite, her stomach sank.

“Drink?”

Ciarán moved to the living room, straight to the bar, pouring a dark liquid, what looked like whiskey. It wasn’t her favourite, but her unstable nerves needed it and she didn’t refuse.

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