And then they both turned their gazes on her.
“You’re just going to let him speak to us like this?” Her mother asked.
“I…” Lexie didn’t know what to say, couldn’t find the words to placate her parents. And the longer she stood there, searching for a way out of this, the more horrified her parents became, taking her silence for agreement with Mitch’s words.
And the thing was, shedidagree with him. But now was neither the time nor the place for this conversation.
Never would be more acceptable.
“Well if that’s how you feel,” her father said, “then we’ll just see ourselves out.”
“Goodbye,” Mitch said.
“Stop it,” she admonished him quietly. “Mom, dad, please don’t go. Mitch is a hockey player. Being protective is in his blood, and he loves me so he’s especially protective of me.”
Her parents ignored her, instead shrugging on their coats and heading toward the door. “I am appalled that you allowed someone like that into your life,” her mother hissed as her father yanked the door open and attempted to usher her out. “Into yourbed.”
“Mom…I’m sorry.”
“We’ll discuss this at a later date,” her father said diplomatically, trying to protect their perfect image, even now.
And then they were gone, the door slamming shut behind them echoing through her apartment.
Mitch came up behind her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just couldn’t—“
“Couldn’t what?” She said, whirling around and cutting him off. “Couldn’t let us enjoy a quiet, drama-free meal with two of the most hard-to-please people on the planet? The worst part is theylikedyou! Before you ripped into them, they actually liked you.”
“They liked my money, Lexie,” he said. “They liked what my money could do for you, for them. They couldn’t care less about who I am as a man.”
He had a point, but Lexie was fuming, too angry to care. “You had no right to speak to them that way. I specifically asked you not to do this, and you completely ignored my wishes! What the fuck were you thinking?”
“What did you expect me to do? Sit there and let them call the love of my life a gold digger? Let them degrade you and diminish everything you’ve worked so hard for and not take a swing at them? Like you said, honey, I’m a hockey player. Protecting what’s mine is in my blood.”
“I told you so many times how they are. Youknewwhat we were walking into. And the second they made some snide comment about me, you couldn’t let it go. You couldn’t just let us survive this day. You had to go and make it a big thing.”
“I won’t apologize for having your back, for caring about you. If that’s what you expect from me, I don’t know what we’re doing here.”
“Neither do I,” Lexie said quietly.
All the fight left her at that moment, because she knew the way out of this wasn’tthrough. The way out of this mess was to end it. Here and now, before it got any harder to do so.
It was the absolute last thing she wanted to do, but…
She had told him from the beginning, and several times since then, that she didn’t believe in love, that she didn’t know how to love. Against all odds, she had fallen for him. But she lived in constant fear of him walking away and leaving her all alone like her parents had been doing her whole life. And now, after this evening turned into a disaster of epic proportions, she didn’t know what she was doing anymore. Her parents would always be her parents, whether she liked it or not, and she couldn’t do this to herself every time they were forced to spend time together. What if she and Mitch got married? What about children?
Deep down, even when she had resigned herself to being single forever, Lexie had always believed she wanted a man who fought her, who kept her on her toes, kept her honest, but one who also made her feel safe and loved and protected.
But when confronted with that man, with Mitch, and witnessing how he’d reacted to a few slights from her parents when she specifically asked him to let it roll off his back…maybe he wasn’t the one for her after all.
Maybethe onedidn’t exist for her.
“What are you saying right now?” He asked, stepping closer and grasping her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “You’re not…you can't be serious.”
She tried to look away from the hurt swimming in his eyes, but he held her in place. “We can’t do this anymore,” she said. “I thought I could. But it’s painfully obvious to me after this disastrous dinner that I’m not cut out for this.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” he said. “After everything, this is how it ends? With you pushing me away again?”
She jerked her head out of his grasp and stepped back out of his reach, needing the distance to breathe, to corral her thoughts and explain this in a way that would make the most sense to him, that would show him she was well and truly done.
