Page 27 of No Apologies
A cold chill seeped in beneath the barriers he’d been building between them and he fought a shiver. She stepped back from him again and again, putting more and more space between them. She was leaving, just like he’d wanted her to, but he wasn’t ready to let her go. Damn it, he might never be ready.
Amid all of that it took him a moment to catch her words and that chill he’d felt turned bitter, “What? What does that mean?”
“It means… I don’t want to keep playing this fucked up game with you, Colt. I’m not a yo-yo. You can’t keep reeling me in closer and then shoving me away. It’s not fair. I need you to talk to me. We talk about everything else. Why won’t you just talk to me about us?”
A surge of disbelief made him scoff, “You want to talk about games? Really? There is no us! You have a boyfriend, Skylar. You invited me into your bed last night knowing full well you belong to someone else so don’t talk to me about fair.”
“Maybe it wasn’t fair to ask you to hold me but you didn’t hesitate, did you?”
“It was a mistake.”
“Is that really what you think?” Her eyes flashed pain and confusion in equal measure, “Is that why you went and stepped into that cage? Because you made a mistake? Or because, God forbid, you might have actually felt something when you were holding me and it scared you?”
She knew him too damn well and he wanted to hate her for calling him out. Damn it, she didn’t get to talk to him about fair. He had plenty of reasons for pushing her away. The least of which was something only she could change. She had a boyfriend. It didn’t matter what he felt for her as long as that was the case. Even if he woke up tomorrow and decided he was ready, she wasn’t.
He clenched his jaw and forced a casual sneer he wasn’t feeling, “You think awfully highly of yourself, Skylar. Not every decision I make revolves around you. You’re not that important.”
The fire went out of her eyes and he knew then that he’d done what he needed to win. It didn’t feel like a victory though. It felt too hollow for that. This fight was too much like the one from last night. Pointless, because nobody was going to get what they wanted in the end.
“You know, I never thought you and Cash were all that much alike until right this minute. You’re doing a damn good impression of him actually. Shutting me out, pushing me away, it’s the same bullshit he pulled with Jemma, remember?” She tilted her head and he knew she saw far more than he wanted her to in that moment, “Nothing to say to that? No. I don’t know why I thought you might talk to me. I should just go.”
There was no other option than to shrug, feign indifference, and let her walk away, “Maybe you should.”
She stared at him for a long moment that felt like an eternity. He could see everything she was feeling right there on her face. She was so good that she’d never had to learn how to hide her emotions. He wished she had, that she could. He didn’t want to have to see that lost look of despair on her face as she realized that he wasn’t going to stop her.
He’d told himself when he walked out of her apartment last night that he had to put some space back between them. Nothing had changed since then. Hell, if anything, this shitty day had only confirmed it.
He’d let her distract him from his fight and now he had a battle with Lincoln to deal with. He was even further away from paying off his debt and freeing himself of his familial responsibilities. He was even further away from the goals he’d set, the ones he’d told himself he had to meet before he could even consider trying for something with a woman like Skylar.
Last night, he’d screwed up and this was the only way he could think of to fix it.
Her bottom lip trembled slightly, “I’ll see you around, Colt.”
“See ya, Skylar.”
It wasn’t a goodbye and for that much, he was grateful. She hadn’t completely given up on him even though she should have. This was the not too close portion of his awful, terrible plan to keep her at arm’s length, the worry that pushing her away would mean losing her for good.
She wiped at her cheek as she turned and walked away from him and he locked his knees to keep from going after her. Maybe he had made her cry before today. He didn’t doubt that it was possible. She wore her feelings on her sleeve and he’d been a bastard to her too many times to count. But he’d never had to see it for himself and all he wanted was to rush to her, pull her into his arms and apologize.
Only, he never apologized, ever, for anything, so he wouldn’t even know where to begin.
