I’ve thought about writing a million songs about Love, but it wouldn’t feel right exploiting her all over again, and for what? So every record company in New York can slam their doors in my face the second they realize who I am?
Changing into a pair of clean jeans from a laundry basket on my bed, I locate an old Cure t-shirt and tug it over my head. I stop at the kitchen next, grabbing an Old Milwaukee from the fridge before settling into an armchair in the living room and flicking the TV on for the sake of not being alone with my thoughts.
Three knocks at the door twenty minutes later nearly cause me to spit my beer out.
Fucking solicitors.
People are always coming through here, sliding their takeout menus under our doors or trying to sell candy bars for their shady fundraisers.
I turn up the volume on the TV and wait for them to leave.
Only they knock again.
And again.
“Not home!” I yell, shaking my head and taking another swig.
The asshole on the other side of the door chooses to ignore me, knocking again, only harder this time. Muting the TV, I slam the remote down, sit my beer on the coffee table, and get up from the chair, fully prepared to give this menu-slinging neckbeard a piece of my mind, only when I jerk the door open, I’m met with a familiar honey gaze.
“Love …” My hand lifts to my messy hair, and I remember that I look like shit.
“Mind if I come in?” she asks. She isn’t smiling and her tone is flat. A pencil skirt and short-sleeved blouse cover her body, and loose blonde curls frame her face. The smallest part of me hopes to God she just left work and she’s not on her way to some date.
“What is this? Why are you here?”
“Can I come in?” Love asks again, glancing past my shoulder then back to me.
“Yeah, yeah.” I step aside and let her in, hoping to God no one saw her come here. “You, uh, want something to drink?”
Her lips form a straight line and she exhales through her nose. “No thank you. I won’t be staying long.”
Hooking my hands on my hips, I give her my full attention.
“I just came here to ask you one question,” she says, clearing her throat. Her eyes shift from mine to the floor and back, and she keeps her left hand clutched tight around the strap of her black purse.
“Anything,” I say.
“Why?” she asks. “Why did you do it? And why didn’t you stop when it got real?”
“I want to tell you that, Love. I really do. I’d give anything to be able to answer those for you, but I—”
“I know about the NDA,” she says. “And I’ve consulted with an attorney who assured me any contract related to illegal activities is unenforceable.”
“The contract wasn’t related to the agreement—it was just a general NDA that prevents me from talking to anyone about anything Hunter and I have spoken about.” I lifting my hand to the scorching skin on my neck for a second. “He made sure nothing else was put into writing. I don’t even think there would be a way to prove any of—”
“Marissa,” she says. “His assistant. She overheard everything you two discussed the first time you met.”
My brows meet, and I think back to that day, when we were alone in the office. “How?”
“He accidentally dialed her,” she says. “Anyway, she heard it all. And she’s the one who told me everything last month, the day after we got back from Cameo’s wedding.”
I search her eyes for a moment. “So that day, when you disappeared and you said you had the migraine …”
“I was avoiding you, yes.”
I don’t blame her, nor do I hold it against her.
“I was going to tell you that day.” My throat constricts. “We’d spent that week together and it was honestly, Love, one of the better weeks of my life. And I realized as soon as we got back, that this was becoming real, and I realized I couldn’t hurt you. Not the way I was supposed to. So I was going to tell you the next day … but you were unreachable. And the next day you showed up with a smile on your face, saying you wanted to spend the day together and that you missed me, and I selfishly gave myself one more day with you.” I exhale, shaking my head. “And then the thing with Piper happened. And you left for The Hamptons the next day.” Massaging the back of my neck, I continue, “I went to Hunter when you were gone. I told him I couldn’t do this anymore. He told me I had a week to leave the apartment, so I was going to tell you as soon as you got back, but the day before that, I came back from a run and he was there, waiting for me. He doubled his offer. And then he more than doubled that offer. When I still wouldn’t budge, he demanded my key and my phone and had me blacklisted from the building.”
The storm in Love’s honey eyes allays, but only slightly.
“I was going to tell you,” I say. “I wanted to be the one. And it killed me that you thought I went radio silent on you, that you thought I abandoned you like a fucking coward.”
Her eyes snap to the floor and her shoulders shake as she inhales. What I wouldn’t give to take her in my arms …
“Everything blew up in my face.” I slide my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. All they want to do is touch her, her hair, her skin, her lips—and I don’t trust myself. “I think about you every day, Love.” My whisper breaks. “I miss you all the time.”
I miss her greedy hands grabbing on me when I’m trying to brush my teeth in the morning.
I miss the warmth of her body formed against mine under the icy cool sheets of my bed.
I miss her infectious laugh. The dimples above her perfect, peach-shaped ass. I miss the half-moon shaped spray of freckles on her left arm.
Love’s silence is concerning, her icy demeanor evident in the space she maintains between us and her refusal to offer a semblance of sentence, but I can’t be upset with her.
I have no right.
“You still haven’t told me why.” Her eyes search mine as she clears her throat, and her hands are clasped in front of her, knuckles white.
“Because I’m a piece of shit loser.” I half chuckle. She doesn’t. “Listen, Love. I didn’t have some idyllic childhood in some cutesy little town. I didn’t have a mom and dad who gave two shits about me. All I had was my kid sister and whatever relative-of-the-month wanted to take us in.”
She begins to say something, but I stop her.
“I’m not asking for your sympathy,” I continue. “I’m just answering your question. My entire life, I’ve been in survival mode. I’ve always done what I needed to do. And in this case, I needed to take care of my sister and my nieces. Piper was sick. I’d just lost my job. We were all on the verge of being fucking homeless and then I had this rich asshole promising me to answer every prayer I’d ever made if I did him this one little favor …”
Love’s stare moves to her feet.
I wish she’d give me a sign. I wish she’d say something instead of letting me babble on like the pathetic, desperate-to-win-her-back idiot that I am.
“I was in the army,” I say. I don’t know why I feel the need to tell her this. Maybe it’s because it’s a piece of who I am and all I’ve done is give her pieces of who I thought she wanted me to be. “Enlisted after high school graduation. Was a mechanic, but the military life wasn’t for me. After that I taught myself guitar, wrote a few songs, played in bars whenever I could, and I worked a shit ton of dead end jobs until someone lined me up with a plumbing apprenticeship. That’s what I was doing until … recently.”