“I think… I… I want to go home.” Bailey stumbles over her words as she lets go of Jules, but she doesn’t look at me. And I need her eyes. Need to know there’s hope for me to come back from this. I told her I knew about her past, but keeping it and having others find out about it? I breached her trust. Something I know she feels highly about.
“I’ll take you,” I say as I stand.
“No.” She’s quick to refute me.
I stare at her and watch her take a deep breath, squaring her shoulders as she closes her eyes for a second. I love this woman. I truly love her. I love everything about her. Her strength and boldness drew me to her. She’s everything I’ve always wanted and more.
I can’t hate her for what she’s about to do. I know it’s coming. I’m even proud of her for doing it, for standing up for herself. Even though I know it’ll tear my heart open.
“I need time. This….” She waves her hand at the table with the computer on it. “It’s a lot for me to take in right now. I thought….” She shakes her head, her hair falling in her face before she runs her hands through it, pushing it out of her eyes. “I thought you were different. That I could trust you. That we didn’t have secrets. You knew about all my most embarrassing moments before I could even tell you. You took my privacy and ripped it open to make sure you liked what you saw.”
I’m shaking my head even before she stops. “No.” I take a step closer. “Like I said the other day, I knew you were it since the moment I met you. I couldn’t think about anyone but you. I knew you weren’t ready to be with me, and I was fine with waiting ’cause it gave me time to find out about you.”
“Yeah, to see if I fit into some glass jar for you to like,” she says as she wipes a tear away angrily. I know she’s mad that I made her cry, even worse that it’s in front of her friends. She’s always seen crying as a weakness, and she never wants to appear so in front of anyone, especially those she cares about.
“No, baby, to see ifIwas going to be good enough foryou. Don’t you get it yet? You’re way too good for me. I’m scum compared to your amazingness. I’m the one you shoo away when he gets too close to something so pure like you. I wanted you, but I couldn’t have you. So I watched. I looked you up. It seems stupid now, but I wanted to know you. I wanted to know everything about you, and since I knew I couldn’t have you yet, having knowledge was enough.”
She closes her eyes halfway through me talking and starts shaking her head as I finish. I chance my luck and step to her so I can cup her cheek and brush away the tear that slides down. I don’t give a shit who’s watching. I’ll throw myself on any sword, in front of any person, to prove myself to her. To prove my love and that she’s worth it all.
“I’m sorry, baby. I really am.”
She nods, but then her eyes open and she takes a step backward again, out of my reach. “I still need some time.”
I lock down my hurt and cry of protest. I would get down on my knees and beg if it would help, but I know it won’t. I’ll do what she needs. Give her the power to choose. To choose us. To chooseme. “Okay. Whatever you need. I’ll be here when you’re ready. When you need me.”
She nods and then walks away with Jules by her side and Flint at her back.
I watch her go and pray to any deity out there that this isn’t the last time I see her. That I didn’t just make the biggest mistake of my life and let the girl of my dreams walk out the door and out of my life. Forever.
Chapter 28—Bailey
“How you doing?” Jules as asks when I pick up after the first ring on my cell.
I try not to cringe at her question only because it reminds me that she knows things I wish she’d forget. “I’ve been better.”
“You know he stayed all night, right?”
I nod, even if she can’t see me. “Yeah, I saw him when I left for work.”
I also saw him when he came over after Flint dropped me off. It wasn’t even a full five minutes before I heard the pipes from his motorcycle. I knew he would come. I was only surprised when I saw him park across the street with a club brother who rode out with him. Think it was Bass, but it was dark out, so it could have been anyone. Well, that and the fact that he never came over. Not once did he knock on my door.
When I left in the morning, I saw him still there, but his club brother was gone. Not that he was alone. Oh no, my dad was over there, and it looked like he’d brought him a carafe of what I can only assume was coffee. No doubt half the neighborhood saw him out there all night, especially my nosy parents. Even then, Reese said nothing as he watched me wave a greeting to my dad and get into my car. I wasn’t ignoring him, or maybe I was. I just don’t know how to feel about all this yet.
It’s like I’m back in high school again, everyone pointing and laughing at a joke I wasn’t in on. It’s probably the stupidest thing to be upset about, but I can’t shake it. I was up half the night thinking about it. My head and heart were at war. One was telling me it wasn’t that bad, while the other kept bringing up the past and showing it was the same thing.
A lie is a lie. He hid something from me. Which wasme, in a way. He took away my opportunity to tell him my secrets, which I think is the reason I’m so upset about this. There are parts of my life I want to leave in the past where they belong. But with him digging them up, then he knows. He’ll always know. I can’t just pretend something didn’t happen, because he knows it did.
Not that he would call you out on it.
Ugh. My inner goddess is on Team Reese and is super upset about not getting laid last night, like she’d grown accustomed to. She—okay,Itossed and turned more than anything else because I wasn’t locked in Reese’s arms. A place I feel more at home in than anywhere else in the world.
“You’re working? I thought summer term was over.”
I’m so in my head, I almost forget Jules is on the phone. I put her on speaker while I walk around the room, putting some books away.
“It is, but now I’ve got to get ready for the fall term.”
“Damn, they don’t let you have any time off.”
