“Okay.” At least Marcus was sensitive enough not to argue, not to reach for her again, even as those blue-gray eyes watched her so carefully. “That makes sense. You’ve got a lot going on.”
“I really do.”
She pulled out her phone from the inside pocket of her purse. With a few taps, she made herself a note to pick up wine along with the necessary cleaning supplies.
“Maybe—” His body still wasn’t touching hers, but he’d edged a bit closer again. So close the heat radiating from him threatened to melt her resolve. Too close. “Maybe I could fly back later in the week? Help you unpack and get settled? I’m between jobs right now, so . . .”
That shyness, that incompletely masked hurt in his voice, was a ploy. An act. It had to be.
She didn’t need to respond to it with softness anymore.
“Whenever someone helps me unpack, I always have trouble figuring out where everything went.” Phone deposited safely back in its pocket, she zipped her purse shut. It made a satisfyingly final sound. Then she turned to look out the window. “I’m not sure what my schedule will look like for the rest of the week, so I shouldn’t make plans. Thank you for the offer of help, though.”
At that point, he seemed to understand. Enough, at least, to stop trying.
“Okay,” he said again.
That was the last word exchanged between them until the cab arrived in front of her new, empty rental. They made their stilted farewells without touching a single time.
His face, the one time she dared to look, was drawn. Solemn. Resigned.
She didn’t care. She didn’t.
Once out of the cab, she walked to her entrance. Unlocked the door. Opened it. Kicked it shut. Flipped the dead bolt.
She didn’t look back.
Lavineas Server DMs, Ten Months Ago
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: You seem . . . off today. Everything okay?
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Nothing that merits complaint. But thank you, Ulsie.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: It doesn’t need to be something of earth-shaking importance for me to listen. If you want to vent, I’m here.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I’m just tired, I think. Sick of traveling, at least for now. Unsure where I want my career to go after this.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Making a career change is hard. I only recently started applying for different positions, even though I’ve wanted to leave my current job for months.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: You’re doing it, though, because you’re brave.
Book!AeneasWouldNever: I have no right to whine. I’m very, very lucky to have my job. But
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: But what?
Book!AeneasWouldNever: It gets lonely. I don’t feel like myself around anyone, really.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’m sorry, BAWN. ::hugs::
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: What can I do to help?
Book!AeneasWouldNever: Keep being you, Ulsie. That’s more than enough. :-)
12
MARCUS LET HIMSELF BACK INTO HIS HOTEL ROOM. IT WAS dim and cold and pristine.
In the bathroom, he splashed his face with cold water, then braced his hands on the edges of the marble vanity and stood over the sink, letting himself drip.
April didn’t want to see him again. That, among all the confusion of their cab ride, was clear enough.
He’d said something wrong. Done something wrong.
It shouldn’t surprise him anymore, and it shouldn’t hurt him anymore, either.
When he finally dried off, the towel was soft against his skin, when he wanted roughness instead. He wanted to scrub and scour his flesh until he’d uncovered a new iteration of Marcus Caster-Rupp. One whose throat wasn’t thick and tight. One who hadn’t lost both April’s friendship and the possibility of so much more in a mere handful of days.
When he opened his laptop and checked Twitter, there they were. He and April, fingers intertwined by a colorful display of rocks. Braced against a rail, body to body, as the ground jolted beneath them. Cuddled close in their planetarium seats.
The paparazzi photos were beginning to appear too, on various entertainment sites. In those, he had his mouth open and hot on her neck, her shoulder, as she laced her fingers through his hair and held him close, chin tipped toward the sun, eyes closed behind those cute glasses.
Whatever he’d done, it was after that. In front of the paparazzi, or in the cab.
The images—
Letting out a hard breath, he scrolled down, down, down, away from them.
After checking one thread of comments at the bottom of an article, he clicked away from those as quickly as he could too, hoping April made a smarter decision than he just had. He hadn’t gotten the sense she was sensitive about her body during the Fanboy Asshole Incident on Twitter, and Lord knew she was gorgeous, but anyone’s confidence could be shaken by enough cruelty.
That said, someone had already created a Twitter account dedicated solely to retweeting pictures of April and adding admiring commentary. Their handle? @Lavineas5Ever5Ever. The follower count had already hit two hundred and kept rising as he watched.
If they knew her Lavineas server name, he suspected a second account might appear: @UnapologeticLaviniaStanStan.
Speaking of which . . .
He couldn’t post there anymore, not without silently confirming that he’d lied to April as Book!AeneasWouldNever about his nonexistent business trip and its nonexistent ban on internet and cell phone usage, but he had to see what everyone was saying.
With one click, he was invisible. Simultaneously outside and within his longtime community. Observing. Taking comfort from his friends, even from a desolate distance.
New threads had popped up along with those new photos of his date with April. New DM notifications too—including one from Ulsie, which couldn’t be right.
He blinked at the screen. Squinted. Clicked after a few moments, his heart rate soaring to uncomfortable levels.
No, he wasn’t imagining things. She’d written him in the last few minutes, even though he’d said he would be out of touch indefinitely, even though he’d hurt her with his obvious falsehood.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I know you said you were going to be off on a job where you couldn’t get online, but I wanted to let you know something.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: In case that wasn’t entirely true, in case maybe your offline trip had something to do with my dating Marcus Caster-Rupp: we’re not dating anymore.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: Which is a stupid thing to tell you, since you didn’t want to meet me in person, even if I canceled my second date with him. So this was pointless.
Unapologetic Lavinia Stan: I’m sorry. My head is a mess right now, and I wasn’t thinking. I won’t bother you again.
We’re not dating anymore. I won’t bother you again.
Well, that was confirmation he’d neither wanted nor needed.
He wasn’t getting a third date with April. He wasn’t even certain she’d write to Book!AeneasWouldNever after he returned from his fake trip, unless he agreed to meet her in person. Which he couldn’t. In theory, he could probably make up some story about why they couldn’t meet, come up with some plausible explanation about agoraphobia or whatever, but he didn’t want to lie to her yet again.
Yeah, he was fucked, and hurting, and he had no idea what—if anything—he could say in response to her messages. If her head was a mess, his was too. He needed time.