His eyes fell shut, and he drew a deep breath. Yeah, I was testing his patience, but he’d done plenty of the same with me.
“You don’t want to settle this?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Haven’t you heard of letting someone blow off a little steam before picking up the topic again?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it, and I think it’s total bullshit. If you’ve got a problem, you lay everything down on the table. You don’t just bottle it up. You don’t put it off either. That’s not healthy.”
I sat down in the chair across from the TV and stretched out. Then I yawned deeply, making myself far too comfortable. That made my boyfriend’s eyes widen. It meant that I wasn’t going anywhere, and he would have to deal with me.
“So,” I said, “this whole thing started with you not being supportive of me and wanting to sabotage the whole team and?—”
“Out!”
He pointed to the door like a schoolteacher kicking a kid out of class. I just sat there, clapping a hand over my mouth as I fake-yawned again. Look, he didn’t really want me to leave. He just had to do something to maintain his own credibility.
“Where was I?” I asked. “Oh yeah, you weren’t supportive of me. That’s why I had to?—”
“Out!!” He shouted it louder this time. I actually felt tiny vibrations on the floor. If we could hear the neighbors having loud sex, then they could hear my boyfriend ordering me out of his apartment.
Maybe hedidneed a little time to cool off. I’m not stupid, you know. But how much time would be enough? Look, I know I’m a stubborn mule, but I’ve got a good excuse this time. Game seven was only a few days away, and I couldn’t risk us being pissed at one another when we took the ice. But I couldn’t let him win. I just couldn’t.
My boyfriend’s face reddened. He must’ve been seething inside. Yeah, he had a temper if you pushed him hard enough. And yeah, we’d basically come to blows before, but now we didn’t have a full complement of teammates to pull us apart. I understood how nasty this could get.
But I wasn’t going anywhere.
Though I thought I knew Erik De Ruiter inside and out, he could still surprise me once in a while. Like right now. I didn’t know where he was really coming from with this tossing-me-out-of-his-apartment crap and how far he would take it.
Again, I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” he asked. “You’re just sitting there.”
“I know.”
I heard the boastful note in my voice and wouldn’t take it back.
“And I told you to get out of my apartment. I wasn’t joking. I don’t want to see you. I didn’t tell you to get out for my health, you know.”
I put my hands on the armrests and pushed myself up. Look, I didn’t know what to do. We’d reached a stalemate, and I didn’twant the problem to escalate, so I stuck to being the Kayden Preston I knew how to be. I stood up, and shuffled closer to my boyfriend but didn’t kiss him. I could only imagine how that would’ve gone over had I done it suddenly. Instead, I breathed on his neck so he could enjoy the warmth. He would soon be putty in my hands.
“Out!” he said yet again, his eyebrows furrowed now.
So much for him turning to putty.
I bit my lip, not wanting to give in but understanding that I had to back off, at least for now.
“You know that if I go now, I won’t be coming back,” I said.
“That would be an answer to my prayers.”
“Fine. Then I’m leaving.”
“Great.”
“Seriously. I’m going.”
