Something dangerous flashed in his eyes. “Don’t throw my words back at me.”
“Why? Because they’re accurate, and you don’t like it when the shoe’s on the other foot?”
“Alice—”
“Becoming a couple and living together isn’t just about a change of zip code, Loki. It’s changing who you once were when you were all alone, and agreeing to become someone who’s part of a unit. A half of a whole. It sucks, because you have to share that world, but it’s also great, because you get to share that world with the one person who means everything to you. I might be new to relationships and how they work, but that’s how it seems to me.”
“Look, I live without permission or excuses. If you can’t handle that, then you can’t handle me. Now if you want to talk about this later, save if for when we get home and we can yell at each other without holding back.” With that, he firmly showed her out of his tattooing booth.
Chapter Nineteen
Breathe.
Like an automaton, Alice hauled two boxes out of the back of the taxi, paid the driver, then headed up the walkway to her apartment.
Just breathe. The pain will stop soon. Any minute now…
Yeah.
Right.
Any frigging minute now.
Her old plushie Badtz-Maru keyring had now been joined by the biker Badtz-Maru Loki had given her. She tried not to look at it as she unlocked her building’s security door and dragged the boxes inside. Loki’s housekeys had been left on the kitchen table that had once been used by them during much happier times.
He could keep the keys.
But little biker Badtz-Maru was all hers.
Oh God, it hurt.
And breathing wasn’t helping.
The pain was understandable since the wound was so fresh, she tried telling herself as she lugged the boxes up the stairs to her apartment. She didn’t even know how deep her wounds went. She hadn’t had time to do much of anything except leave work earlier than usual for lunch on the excuse of an imaginary dentist appointment. She wasn’t even sure if she would return to work today. Or ever.
She’d just known she had to get out of that building.
Once she did, she realized it wasn’t just House Of Payne she needed to escape. She couldn’t stand the idea of leaving anything that was hers at Loki’s place, because he hadn’t actually welcomed her into his world like she’d believed. Today had opened her eyes to that fact. Sharing a bed with her was one thing, but sharing his life and adjusting to consider her feelings when it came to that life was obviously something he wasn’t willing to do.
She didn’t know how love worked, God knew. And when it came to sharing those big emotions, she was a total fumble-fingered amateur. But she was pretty sure that if Loki felt anything like love for her, he wouldn’t have been able to toss responsibility for her feelings away like they were nothing.
Like she was nothing.
Part of this was her fault, she thought grimly as she again juggled her keyring until she got the correct key to open her apartment door. She’d lost her mind telling him what was in her heart. Like an idiot, she’d felt perfectly safe with him, blurting out her feelings and becoming drunk on the freedom of finally uncorking everything she kept bottled up inside.
Worst.
Decision.
Ever.
Life was so much better when she stifled her feelings, she thought as she entered her apartment, dragging the boxes in with her as she went. As far as she could tell, emotions like love fucked up a person’s life, with very few benefits to balance out the risk. Sure, it was wonderful and addictive, that feeling of belonging to another and knowing she’d finally found a home in someone else. But it was all a mirage. Putting her happiness in another human being was a trap, especially if that person didn’t want that responsibility.
Which Loki obviously did not.
Without warning, someone tapped her shoulder. “Alice—”
Lightning-fast, she wheeled around with a spin crescent kick, her heart in her throat and panic surging at the thought of what horrible things could happen to her at the hands of the people who’d been hounding Joelle. With every intention of dashing out the door, she froze when she saw who had flown back into the living room.
“Felix?” Dumbfounded, she gaped at her foster brother sprawled on the floor, holding his head where she’d kicked him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“What do you think? It’s too dangerous for me to stay at my place. I can’t go to Jo’s because of Gus, so there was no other place for me to go. Damn, Al, why’d you kick me?”
“Because there are shady-ass enforcers lurking all over the place because of you, and no one was supposed to be in here. My God,” she breathed, clutching at her racing heart. “You gave me a fucking heart attack, you idiot.”
“And you gave me another concussion. My ears are ringing.”
“You’re lucky I’m not straight-up finishing you off. Just being here makes it look like I’m harboring a fugitive. Oh,” she added with a snap of her fingers, “in case you didn’t know, the police are after you for stealing your own payroll and leaving all your employees in the lurch. I believe I overheard the words fraud and embezzlement.”
Felix, his blonde hair shaggier than she’d ever seen it, slumped on the floor, not even bothering to get up. He couldn’t have looked more like a pouting child if he’d tried. “The police are the least of my worries, though it does suck they’re after me, too. I’d go to them for help if they weren’t going to slam me behind bars the moment they caught sight of me.”
“This is why you can’t be here,” Alice said, crossing her arms. It was the only thing she could do to stop herself from going for his throat. “You’ve ruined my life enough, Felix. I’m not going to break the law by allowing you to hide in my apartment. You need to leave.”
“It’s not like you’re actually living here, so I don’t see why you’d care if I’m here or not.” At last he pushed to his feet and frowned at her accusingly. “Where the hell have you been? There’s almost nothing left in the fridge.”
“Oh, my God, you can’t be serious.” But of course he was. The world had always catered to Felix, the entitled little brat. “Just get the hell out, okay? I don’t care if the leg-breaking goons get you, or if the cops pick you up and throw you in the slammer. Just get out.”
Something terrible crossed his expression. “You throw me out, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to me. That’d be on you.”
Arrrgh. “No, you unbelievable dick, everything is all on you, because this is the hole you’ve dug for yourself.”
“That hole’s going to be my grave if I don’t lay low for a while.”
“So in other words, nothing’s changed since I last saw you.” After taking a moment to mull it over from all sides, she shook her head. “You know what? This can’t go on any longer. I’ve had it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t think I stuttered.” Disgusted that Felix’s shit was destroying everyone around him and he didn’t seem to care, she dragged her phone out of her back pocket, then grimaced when she saw several missed texts and calls from Loki. She’d turned her ringer off after the first text had come in while she’d been packing up her stuff from his place. She wasn’t ready to talk to him, a fact which baffled her now.