She flicks the briefest of glances my way. “I know it’s not your favourite time of year.”
“Yeah.” I shrug. “Plus, I’m not really looking forward to having to explain all this.”
“Explain what?”
“Uh… Us? The reason I need to crash on an available Kincaid couch?”
“You haven’t told them?” She sounds shocked.
“No.” God, the way my neck just tightened up. And nobody’s asked after Rory, either, in months, so I guess everyone just agrees that it makes sense we’re done. “It went okay with your folks?”
She doesn’t answer. Just stares out the window.
My pulse picks up. “Rory? You did tell them, right?”
“No,” she admits finally.
Jesus. “Have you told anyone?”
She shakes her head.
“Not even your sisters?”
“God, no.”
“We broke up inApril.”
“And I was heading into my final year of residency,” she snaps. “Work is literally all I have time for.”
I’m painfully aware of that fact. My cock wants to point out a few highlight moments where she made exceptions to that rule, but…there was also a stretch in there were we couldn’t even convince her to take orgasm breaks.
I try to drag in a deep breath, but my chest is too damn tight. I exhale carefully, drumming my thumb against the steering wheel. “Okay, fair. I guess I’ve been treading water, too.”
She gestures toward my lap, which doesn’t help with the thickening going on in my jeans. “You’ve changed plenty.”
I don’t like the edge in her voice. She’s teasing, but she’s not.
“So what if I have?” I snap, more defensive than I mean to be.
She backpedals a little. “It’s great. I’m saying it’s great. Clearly, this whole breakup thing is working for you. You got jacked. You started playing rugby.”
That makes me laugh. “Those are the same thing. It’s one new hobby. I’m still the same guy, Rory. I stillfeelthe same.”
And like usual, she doesn’t have a reply for that.
After a long, silent pause, I glance over. “You worried about what people are going to say?”
“Of course. You are, too.”
“I didn’t say that. I said I didn’t really know how to explain it.”
She makes a deeply frustrated sound I know far too well and jerks her head away, looking out the window.
Drum drum drum. I press my thumb hard against the wheel. “I’ll wear it, don’t worry.”
“That’s not how it works.” She crosses her arms tighter and hunches up her shoulders. “You’re going to come off like the good guy who tried to hang in there while I gave everything to my training, and I’ll catch flack for a breakup I didn’t even ask for.”
She’s not wrong. It was my stupid fucking idea. I couldn’t keep living in the limbo of being together but never moving forward. Not when she never looked up from her work long enough to notice I was right in front of her, just…waiting.
