“And what did you see?” she asks, thrusting her chin in the air.
Christ. It’s the same look she gave me on move-in day. I deserved it then, but I sure as hell don’t deserve it now. I’m not the one who screwed up. Not this time.
“I saw you blow your shot at an incredible opportunity. Screw up your future, and for what? Because you felt bad for me?” I throw up my hands and when she flinches, I lock them behind my head and take a step back. Sutton has such a big personality, it’s easy to forget our size difference at times like this, when emotions are running high. But even though I’m pissed, I never want her to fear me. “What did you think? That if you threw your lines, it would improve my chances?”
“Dios mío.” She crosses her arms, refusing to back down. “Do you even hear yourself right now? Spoiler alert, Devin. I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me.”
“So you admit it? You purposely screwed up those lines?”
“Yes.”
I’d known it all along, but the admission still hurts like a motherfucker.
“And if you’d calm down, we could talk about this rationally.” She pulls a face. “Like adults.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”
She cocks her head and her brows knit together in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Shorty. Pranking the football team isn’t what I’d call mature, adult behavior.”
She huffs out a breath. “I hardly think that’s relevant to this conversation.”
“It goes to pattern,” I say, pulling some Law & Order bullshit out of my ass. “You saw my fuck up on camera and just like with our term paper, you wanted to play savior. Poor Devin can’t read the words, so I’ll just improve the odds for him.”
“It wasn’t like that.” She presses her lips flat, as if she’s holding something back. “Like I said, this wasn’t about you.”
“Right. You just sat down in that chair and decided you no longer wanted the internship?” I scoff. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“What I know is that when it comes to your challenges with dyslexia, you’ve got a blind spot. You always assume the worse. Assume people will judge you or look down on you or pity you, but that’s not who I am.” She throws up her hands. “It’s not who most people are, but you can’t see that because you’ve got a big-ass chip on your shoulder.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” My words echo in the cavernous garage, but I could give a shit who hears us. “You have no clue what it’s been like for me.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” She steps toward me and I take another step back. “But I’ve seen how hard you work to be the best, Devin. How hard you worked to get this interview and to prepare for it. And despite it all, you refused to ask for accommodations.” She pauses, squaring her shoulders. “So which of us is really guilty of self-sabotaging behavior?”
Fuck. That.
I didn’t sabotage myself. I wanted that position. Still do. But I wanted to do it on my own.
“Don’t you dare try to turn this around on me.” I jab a finger in the air. “We agreed we’d both do our best. That we’d keep the internship separate from our…arrangement, and accept the outcome, however things played out.” I suck in a breath, reaching for calm though my hands are shaking. “I wanted to land the internship on merit, not a hand up. You took that away from me when you decided I couldn’t do it on my own, a choice you never would’ve made if we weren’t sleeping together.”
Her eyes narrow and if looks could kill, I’d be dead on the pavement. “When have I ever given you the impression I’d toss my ambitions aside for a guy?” She twirls her hand in the air, making aget on with itgesture. “Go ahead. I’ll wait.”
That would be never.
But it’s exactly what she did today.
She worked just as hard as I did to get this opportunity and she pissed it away on some spur-of-the-moment pity jag.
The knowledge burns like hot coals in my gut.
“You are unbelievable,” she says, voice cracking.
I roll my shoulders, resisting the urge to go to her. The last time we had this argument, we resolved it with sex and look where that got us.
Nowhere.
All it did was delay the inevitable.
