Right.Right. That’s the attitude. “Of course.”
Her face pinches in tight, her cheeks paling. As if she’s just had a painful thought. “I should have just been honest with them from the start.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“They all wanted to know why, and I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t say anything, because I don’t know what you were thinking. My mom asked if this was a mid-life crisis for you.”
“No. Jesus, it’s… That’s not it.” I scrub my hands over my face and into my hair. “That was supposed to be a private, funny gift just for you. I don’t even know how it ended up under the tree. I’d tucked it beside the couch with my backpack.”
She shrugs. “The twins carried it to my dad.”
Fuck. When I grabbed my backpack to have my shower, I would have left the gift just laying there, and to a toddler, it looked like fair game. “That’s my fault, then.”
She drags in a ragged breath. “I don’t care about fault. I’m not blaming you. I’m not even mad.”
“You’re disappointed? Word on the street is that’s even worse.”
She doesn’t laugh.
“Okay, no jokes. Now isn’t the time?—”
“Whydidyou make it?” She lifts her gaze and frowns at me. “And when? Because this—” she wiggles the dildo between us. “This doesn’t happen overnight, right?”
I wince. “No, not overnight.”
“So what exactly is this?”
I take a deep breath. “I had it made in the summer.” I glance at the open hallway behind me and lower my voice. “After the second time we hooked up. You were conflicted about it, and I didn’t know how I felt about it, either. And I saw an ad. It felt like…”
“Like what?”
“It was the only thing you liked about me, Roar. I thought it would be cleaner if I just…gave it to you.”
“You were going to break up with me.” She sounds so indignant.
“We were already broken up. I can’t do that twice.” Except now it feels like we’re on a collision course for me to do exactly that, and I feel sick over it.
“But this was a going away present?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t call it that.”
“What would you call it?”
“A funny joke.”
“It doesn’t feel funny.” Bright tears threaten to spill from her lovely, furious eyes. She swipes at them, her fingers shaking.
I reach out and catch her hands and take a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I see that now. I shouldn’t have brought it. I was torn. I didn’t know when or how?—”
“But you did bring it. Like two days ago, you thought you should give me that, and then I wouldn’t need you anymore? Is that right?”
When I don’t answer her, because yes, that’s right, even though it feels very, very wrong, she nods her head firmly.
“Got it. You wormed your way back into my heart?—”
“Wormed?”
“—and the whole time you were going to give me this replacement dick and move on?”
