"Why would it?"
"Becca."
He said my name, just that one word, like he had before. This time the tone was entirely different. It wasn't soft and reverent. Nathan sounded disappointed. Almost hurt.
I turned to face him, not knowing what to say. I wanted to ask him so many things.
Do you really feel that way about me?
How can I believe what you told me is true?
How many girls have you said those exact words to?
But the worst of it was, I didn't know what answer I wanted to hear.
The thought of being just another notch on Nathan's bedpost threatened to send me reeling, made nausea rise in my stomach, made tears pinprick the back of my eyes.
But it also sent a sense of relief flooding through me.
He couldn't possibly mean all the things he said. I was just another girl, just someone to have some fun with. That was all I had expected, right from the beginning. That was all I had wanted.
Or, it had been what I wanted.
But now…
"Thanks for taking care of me," was all I could come up with.
"Of course," he replied, still staring at me.
"I should get going," I continued. "It's late. I promised my parents I'd have brunch with them tomorrow."
Nathan touched my arm.
"Why don't you get some sleep and I'll drive you home tomorrow morning?" he asked.
"It's fine," I said. "I'll just call a taxi."
He quirked a smile. "You want to take a taxi home wearing boxers and a t-shirt?"
"I guess I can wait until my clothes are dry," I murmured, fiddling with the hem of the shirt. "Sorry to make you leave the party early."
"It's okay," he said. "Wouldn't have been any fun without you, anyway."
"Do you go to a lot of parties like these?" I asked.
What I really meant was,do you bring a lot of girls to parties like these?
"Probably not as many as you would expect, but definitely more than I should," he said. "You'd think being a rock star would mean non-stop parties, but I actually go to fewer now than when we were indie. You don't want to always be hungover at the recording studio or before every concert."
"Sounds responsible of you."
"Damn," he said. "Another word no one ever uses to describe me, and here we are, all alone, with no one to witness it."
"I don't know why you always pretend to be so—"
"Careless?" he filled in with a shrug. "I spent my whole life being the responsible one. Growing up, because my mom was sick a lot, I had to take care of a lot of stuff."
Right. If his mom was sick when he was younger, it made sense that he would have been the one to take care of her.
