Page 18 of Just Like in the Movies
Oh, God, don't look there. Now I want to...
"I only wanted to do something nice for you. I know you loved Grandma too." He turned his gaze up at me, big puppy-dog eyes that made me feel like a jerk. "I messed up again." He looked away, one hand playing with the sheets like a child waiting for a lecture.
I'd come here figuring to give him a chance, praying I was right but knowing he'd probably blow it, and hoping it would give me the closure I needed to move on with my life. But the emotion in his words struck at my heart like a hammer, and now I found myself hoping he could get his shit in a pile and be the man I knew was hiding in there underneath the actor's charming smile and practiced posing. So I nodded. "A bit. You haven't earned back the right to give me flowers." I paused, then added, "Yet," while a feeling like what-the-hell-was-I-thinking filled my brain.
His head came up so fast I half-expected to hear a sonic boom. "Yet? So maybe I could?"
"I don't know. Can you? Can you fucking keep it together and remember you're not the only goddamn one in the relationship? I'm not the star-struck teenager I was when you proposed." He winced and I squashed both my savage glee and the hurt I felt at causing him pain. I had a point to make and I didn't want to lose it in my own need to make him happy. "How long are you here for?"
"Two weeks," he said hopefully. “Well, week and a half now.”
I nodded at him and held up a hand when he started to get up. "Don't. You aren't there yet and I don't expect you'll get there. But if you're here for another while..." I started to back out of the room before I got stupider and changed my mind about that too. "So, you have ten days to convince me that the man I fell in love with is still in there somewhere under the asshole. And that he’s the one that’s in charge. Because I’ve had it with assholes."
And then I beat it the hell out of there before I threw myself on him and took it all back.
