Page 30 of Drum Me Away
“Why?”
He studied his face in the mirror, maybe trying to decide whether to trim his beard.
He didn’t need to.
Uncapping his deodorant, he dragged it across his underarms. “Because you have been afraid to get close to me for years,” he finally said.
“I know.”
He arched his brows again while his gaze sought mine through the reflective glass. “Really?”
I nodded. “I just realized it. But, yeah, I have been keeping you at arm’s length for a long time.”
“Why?”
Time for true confessions, apparently. “Remember that guy I dated our senior year in college?”
“That total douche canoe?”
I canted my head. “Did you feel that way before or after he broke up with me?” Yes, Lucas knew about the breakup. I’d rushed back to LA with my tail between my legs and cried on his shoulder for weeks.
And he’d let me. He’d never hit on me or told me to get over it or offered up any number of other responses. He’d just…been there for me.
“Before, but that was probably because you were dating him and you only had eyes for him. He didn’t seem like all that horrible of a human being if I took you out of the equation.”
Okay, this was new information. “Are you saying you had… feelings for me, back then?”
What about that promise we’d made to each other to not let emotions get in the way of our success?
He turned to fully face me, resting his hip against the sink and crossing his arms. That towel draped low on his hips, showing off those V-shaped muscles he had every right to be proud of. “I’d say I had a crush on you for a while there. But then you got all serious about him, so I let it go.”
Holy shit. The what ifs were already piling up in my head. “What about after we broke up?”
He lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “You were brokenhearted. No way was I going to hit on you then. I’ve been a rebound before. It sucks.”
“I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“How about go back to the reason you interrupted my shower and didn’t avert your eyes when I was buck naked and there wasn’t enough steam to at least partially hide that fact.”
I swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, let’s go back to that. When you announced that you wanted out of this fake relationship, I thought it was because you had a girlfriend.”
“Ah. So that’s where you got that from. Faith, I haven’t dated anyone in four years. Well, except you.”
“And it was all fake.”
“It was.”
“Did it feel fake? To you, I mean.” Why was I asking this? I didn’t want to know.
But I needed to if Lucas and I were to survive this funeral.
“Some of it did. You know, the lack of sex, sleeping in separate rooms, pretty much not speaking unless we were in the public eye together. That was all very real but made the relationship painfully fake.”
I sucked in a breath and pressed my hand to the wall. Oh my God, was Maria right? “Are you…are you saying you…you wanted it to be real?”
“Why are you asking?” he shot back.
A fair question. If he had, in fact, wanted our fake relationship to be real and I hadn’t noticed until now—for four fucking years—I could imagine he’d be leery of opening up to me.
