Page 104 of Fierce-Hyde

She shrugged. “I wasn’t sure how she’d react. I didn’t want you to read more into things if I was getting frustrated over my conversation. Chances are it wouldn’t have been about you and I was right. There was nothing about you on that call. Most of the calls are never about me and you are with me.”

“I’m sorry if I’m coming off strong on this,” he said.

“Don’t worry. We said we’d talk things through and we are. Might not be the best time for it, but it is what it is. I’ll try to tell my mother soon. But she made it sound like she was spending the entire weekend with Dan and that they might go away.”

Which meant her mother wouldn’t even answer her calls most likely unless it was an emergency. Even then, that was up for debate.

“We’ll put it from our minds,” he said. “Sorry if I put you in a mood now.”

“You didn’t,” she said. “Not really. My mother did and you saw it. I’ve got to figure this out. I don’t normally let her affect me quite this much.”

“Why are you now?” he asked.

“The only answer I can come up with sounds silly.”

“Then humor me,” he said.

She laughed. “Sure. Why not? I think seeing what we’ve got and how you are with your family and wanting me to be a part of it made me realize everything I’ve really missed out on growing up. I’ve always known it but never let it get to me too much.”

His hand reached over and rubbed on her thigh. “But it is now?”

“Slightly. Not in a bad way. More like a reflection on my life. And it has me thinking about how to handle anything with my mother going forward if she is upsetting me this much.”

“Upsetting is a strong word,” he said. “Earlier it was bothered.”

She forced out a laugh. “How about it’s in between upset and bothered? Some things won’t ever change. You can’t completely forget your past.”

“I know that just as much as you,” he said. “But I’m trying my hardest not to let it drag me down.”

She told herself not to get offended he used those words. She couldn’t jump on everything that came out of his mouth.

“Yours isn’t ongoing like mine though,” she said.

He had no response to that and it was for the best.

32

OUT IN THE OPEN

“How come you didn’t tell me you talked to Jax this week?” Hyde asked the next day at his apartment.

They were both off and had no plans.

There was no way he was stepping foot in a mall on Black Friday and Tori didn’t seem to want to shop either.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” she said. “You told me weeks ago that it was my decision what I did about my job.”

“It is,” he said. “But I thought you’d at least talk to me about it. I talk to you about my job. You know I’m working on the space that Jax’s agency is going to be moving into.”

“I don’t want to fight,” she said.

“I’m not trying to fight,” he said. “You just started talking like I knew what you were saying about your interview, but you didn’t even tell me you had it. So I asked you why?”

Could he be so wrong about everything with Tori or was she so used to doing everything herself that it didn’t occur to her to share her life with him?

In the past, he never cared all that much if he knew every detail about a woman he was with. But with Tori, he wanted toknow more about what was going on with her and couldn’t seem to get her to understand that.

And when they tried to talk about things it always came off wrong on both their parts.

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