Page 43 of Guarded Hearts
Go back, sleep it off, and hope tomorrow wasn’t too awkward at rehearsals.
Chapter Eighteen
Alyssa
Iflipped off the light in the bathroom. I tugged down the pale pink slip I slept in. At the edge of the bed, I stared at my brace. Instead of thinking about my throbbing ankle, my mind was stuck on Pasha.
Jealous.
I’d lost count of the number of times I’d tried to inspire jealousy, and he’d been set off by the briefest mention of Ricky.
I got the heating pad out of the drawer and tossed it into the microwave. Emika had told me to get heat on my injury before going to bed. Even if it was two in the morning, I wanted this ankle healed. The job on Sarah Telling’s tour wouldn’t happen if I couldn’t dance.
Despite Mia’s assurances, dancing on the tour was the best way to pay down my debt. Otherwise, Ricky would have to become an option, or at least convincing Ricky hemighthave a chance would keep me financially afloat. He could come back with my things and my money, and then I’d have the satisfaction of kicking him out.
In the car on the way back, Olivia had texted to say she and Kevin had worked out their problems. Olivia had used her vicious fight with Kevin as an example of how I could forgive Ricky if I wanted to. She’d ended her text withThe weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
After I’d copied the words into a search engine and found out Gandhi had said them, I barked out a laugh at my sister’s lack of creativity. A great humanitarian’s words were being wielded like a reason I should forgive a shitty human. Olivia was unbelievable. Of course, then I’d fallen down a hole of forgiveness quotes online, and my mind tuned to Pasha and not Ricky.
I’d told him we were done. But I didn’t really know if that was what my heart believed. The words had been a gut instinct—a reaction to him not appearing to give a shit for a week and then giving me a hard time about something,someone, who didn’t even matter. He’d hurt me, but I understood jealousy.
In other men, I’d encouraged them to feast on it, to let it fuel reckless relationships. Jealousy meant drama, and there was a time when I couldn’t get enough.
Wasn’t that what love was supposed to feel like? Rip each other’s hearts out over and over. Love and passion and rage and jealousy had always been mashed together in a giant emotional casserole during my other relationships.
Even tonight, sitting beside the guy in the booth, talking to him, ignoring Pasha, I’d hoped he’d be jealous, realize what he’d given up. Like with every other guy, I’d wanted a reaction, any reaction to show Imeantsomething to him. It had never occurred to me that he was already jealous, had been eaten up by it like a parasite.
Maybe I didn’t want to inspire jealousy anymore, not if the end result was misery. That first night, I’d told him he understood the difference between protective and possessive. Maybe I was the one who didn’t.
My phone buzzed, and I prayed it wasn’t my sister. One inspirational text message was enough. When I flipped my phone over on the counter,I saw the message was attached to a phone number instead of a name. I recognized the number, though. Remembered plugging it into my phone when I’d agreed to give him private dance lessons.Pasha. I deleted his number and all our conversations in a rage the other day.
I am outside your bus. Are you alone? I owe you an apology.
I stared at the words, and the microwave beeped, letting me know the heating pad was ready. A text withapology acceptedwould send him on his way without any hard conversations. This was the crossroads.
If I invited him in, we’d have to wade through all the things we hadn’t been saying to each other. If I sent him the two-word text message, we’d probably never work anything out, would go our separate ways in a few weeks. I had to decide which would be worse.
Without giving too much time to the analysis, I pressed the button to open the bus doors. His heavy tread came up the stairs as I wrapped the heating pad in a thin towel. When he appeared at the top of the stairs, my heart stuttered at his disheveled appearance.
The attraction was still there, ran so deep I wasn’t sure he’d ever leave my system. His sandy blond hair, piercing blue eyes, shoulders so wide they’d shelter me from a hurricane. He’d been bulky from weight lifting when we’d started dancing together, but now he was leaner, not just strong but fit. The kind of physique I imagined emerging from the sea, godlike.
I didn’t want to be angry with him anymore, didn’t want to fight about anything. We had a few more weeks, and that would be it. To waste our moments on arguments that didn’t matter felt foolish.
I hobbled over to the couch in the common area and propped my foot on a cushion on top of the coffee table. When I struggled to juggle theheating pad and keep my foot on the pillow, he took the pad from me and laid it across my ankle. I sighed as the warmth seeped into my skin.
“An apology?” I prompted. No boyfriend had ever apologized when he was wrong. And I wasn’t even sure I should consider Pasha a boyfriend at all.
“Yes. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I should have talked to you.”
“About your jealousy or…?” I adjusted the heat on my ankle.
“All of it.” He hadn’t sat down but instead stood poised beside the couch as though he considered fleeing.
“So there’s more you haven’t told me?” I patted the spot beside me, hoping he’d sit close enough that I’d be able to touch him or smell him. The week had passed at a snail’s pace, and I just wanted a hint of the security I’d felt budding with him.
He ran his thumb and index finger along his chin and eyed the couch. He slouched down into it and put his head back, close enough that I could touch him, that his cologne circled around me. Without thinking, I ran my fingers through the hair on the crown of his head, thoughtful. His hair was getting longer, and some of the ends were curling.
“Is your hair curly?”
