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“Me? He’s the one who—”
“I will deal with you later,” she said to him, like he was a bratty toddler.
He turned and joined his parents inside.
She just stood next to me, with her arms crossed over her chest, shaking her head. I was in trouble. There was no way to turn this around like I did after the nightclub in Whistler.
She said her goodbyes and then we left the party early. She didn’t say a word to me as she drove us back to her parents’ house. She didn’t even look at me until we got up to her room, and she shut the door behind us.
She sat down on the bed, and threw her hands up in the air. “Theodore!”
“He had it coming.”
“You punched him in front of our parents! At their anniversary party! At the country club!”
“I’m sorry about that. You did see that he tried to hit me first.”
“He would have missed your face, he was drunk! He was being an idiot but he didn’t deserve—”
“You’re not actually taking that guy’s side? The guy who cheated on you for years? Overme?”
“This isn’t about loyalty.”
“Well what is it about, Gemma? It’s not about us being best friends, or living together, it’s not about us marrying each other, it’s not about us fucking, it’s not about me being in love with you. Please—enlighten me. Whatisit about?”
“It’s about trust.”
“Well, I don’t trust that guy and I don’t see how you could.”
“Okay but how canyounot trustme?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.”
“Really? You sure about that?”
I didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and it was those few seconds that cracked everything open.
“Theo.”
Here we go...“You said you were secretly in love with me when you were still dating him.”
At first, she gave me ayes, and?look, but then she understood what I was getting at and the color drained from her face.
“And you’ll never know for sure if I’m telling you the truth when I say I’m in love with you. You’ll never know for sure if I’m secretly interested in someone else.”
I looked away, and when I looked back, I could see in her face that it was over. This glorious ride we’d been on. Just like that.
She stood up and started pacing around the room like a caged tiger. “Right. You don’t trust me.”
“I didn’t say that. I would never say that.”
“Oh of course not, not the polite Canadian. If you don’t at least admit it, I don’t see how I could trustyou.”
That was a trap. I knew it, and the old me, the guy who used to be able to control himself and be the best version of himself around Gemma, would have just backed off, if not a while ago, then definitely at that moment. But. Lines had been crossed.
“Fine. I’ve seen and heard how you were with him before you broke up. All that time, I never would have guessed that you were in love with someone else.”
She held up her hand in protest, like so many reality show stars. “Are you kidding me? Did you seriously just say that to me?”
