Page 95 of For The Weekend
Last night had been amazing.
Until it wasn’t.
It started with Roman showing up at my door and staring at me like I created the moon and stars. He kissed me like he never wanted to stop and made love to me like…like he loved me.
But then he left. Without a word. Or text. Or note. Nothing.
By the time I finished cleaning myself up and tossing on some sweats, he was gone. Like he was never there.
Save for the open and slightly crinkled letter on my kitchen counter. The one from Amy, a reply to my letter.
And I knew I’d fucked up.
My attempts to reach out to him, to explain, were met with silence. Texts went unanswered, calls right to voice mail. For how he opened up to me, he certainly shut down even easier.
I knew he was pissed. There would be no other reason for him to ignore me, but I deserved to be heard out. We needed to have a conversation about this.
I loved him, and even though he might assume I contacted Amy for other reasons, it was only to help. I would only ever want to help him and Mazie.
But with every hour that passes, my own anger rises.
I thought he would be more mature than this, giving me the cold shoulder. No, we’d never officially declared anything about each other, but we were together. I didn’t need to label him as anything other than mine. I hurt him, but his ignoring me hurt too, and nothing could be solved in this endless cycle.
Trying to take my mind off it, I ended up at Sweet Cheeks at five in the morning and worked straight through for hours with music in my headphones and flour on my hands. It’s not until after noon that I finally take a break. As I’m lugging trash out to the bin in the back, a familiar black monster of an SUV pulls into the lot. Then the familiar figure steps out, his dark eyes finding mine immediately.
“Why are you outside without a coat on?” he asks, his breath forming clouds in front of his mouth.
“Because I was running the trash out, but then I saw you and… What happened?”
“You want to talk?Now?”
I shrug. Now is as good a time as any. “Why not?”
He mumbles a curse and yanks off his coat to put around my shoulders. The fleece is warm, and it smells like him. I slide my arms into it, pulling it tight around me, and inhale deeply until my eyes sting. Roman’s hard, angry features cause my throat to clog.
But he doesn’t speak. Merely folds his big arms across his even bigger chest. The place I’d lain my head yesterday, listened to his heartbeat. Now, he might as well be a stranger. Less than that.
An enemy.
I swallow down the lump in my throat and cling to indignation.He has to hear me out. It’s not fair he ignored me all night. It’s not okay that he’s purposefully trying to hurt me.
“Why did you leave?” I ask. “Why didn’t you answer any of my calls or texts?”
He scrubs his hand over his face and hair, his posture losing some of its rigidity. Like maybe he can’t hold on to his resentment or whatever it is he’s feeling about me right now. It takes him a while, but finally he answers, “I didn’t want to say anything I’d regret.”
“But I’d rather have you be mad at me and talk about it than completely shut down and shut me out. That hurts. I?—”
“It hurts?” He scoffs. “How about finding out the person you trust most in the world has been communicating with the person who destroyed that world? How about that fucking hurt, Eloise?”
I flinch at his tone. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“But you did. You went behind my back and contacted her. After everything I told you about her, about everything that went down, you still thought it would be a good idea to talk to her. Without talking to me.” He slaps at his chest like a wounded animal.
I wounded him, and I take a step toward him. He takes one back. “Why did you even do that? How did you know how to reach her?”
He asks his questions like I’m a threat.
I guess that’s how he’s interpreting it.
