A niggling feeling in my gut told me he was still hiding something. If she was truly just a friend, he would have told me about her. We both had friends who were boys and girls, but we talked about them with each other.
I crossed my arms under my chest. “Fine, if you say she is your friend, why have you never mentioned her before?”
“I’m sure I have, you just don’t remember.”
Bullshit. “Okay, what’s her name? Maybe that will stir something in my memory.”
“Lexi.”
I pursed my lips. “Never heard of her.”
He shook his head at me, like he couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. “I’m sure you haven’t told me every guy you’ve ever talked to and hung out with at some point. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.”
“I’ve never asked you to tell me about every person you talk to,” I said. “But I genuinely care about you, and caring about you means I care about your life. I like hearing about your day, about what you do with your friends, about good times and bad, and anything else that is going on in your life. Not because I’m some needy or controlling girlfriend, but because I like being someone you share your life with.”
His expression softened slightly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you cared to hear about my conversations with her. They’re mostly about our finance class, and I didn’t think you’d be interested in hearing about that.”
His apology wasn’t as heartfelt as I had hoped, but I knew him enough to know it was the best I was going to get.
“And,” he continued, his voice less heated. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you got locked out of your apartment.”
“Thank you,” I said softly.
There was an awkwardness that remained between us, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do.
“What ended up happening? How did you finally get into your apartment?” he asked a few moments later, sounding back to his normal self.
“Well, after getting dinner, going to the library, and taking a walk, I figured the only option left was to sit in the hallway and wait for my roommate to show up,” I explained. “Thankfully, Slate came home close to one in the morning and let me hang out at his place until Harper got home.”
“Slate?” he practically yelled. “You live in the same building as him?”
My brows creased. “I told you he lives across the hall from me.”
“When?” he demanded.
“The first week of classes, when I came out of my kinesiology class and you were happy to see that I wasn’t walking out with Slate again,” I reminded him.
His body tensed, and he looked away from me as he answered. “I don’t remember you telling me that.”
“Probably because you were too concentrated on glaring at him.” I could not believe he didn’t remember.
But he didn’t seem to be listening, which was becoming more and more common.
He turned back to me, his eyes brimming with annoyance. “So you’re telling me that you can hide hanging out with Slate, but I can’t study with a friend?”
My mouth dropped open. He could not be comparing the two. “That’s not the same thing at all. I planned on telling you, but this is the first time I’ve seen you,” I explained. “And I was locked out of my apartment! You would rather have me sit outside alone in the dark, than safely inside the apartment of a guy you don’t like?”
“Maybe,” he said bluntly.
A slice of hurt went through me. Did he really mean that? I searched his face for any kind of remorse but came up empty. Did he really care that little about me? He didn’t seem worried about me liking Slate but more about the fact that his girlfriend was associating with him.
He looked around the hallway again. “You know what? I don’t want to do this.”
“Do what?” What exactly was he not wanting to do? Argue?
“This,” he motioned between us. “I had hoped you moving here would make things better between us, but it hasn’t.”
My head spun at his words. He couldn’t really be saying what I thought he was saying. “It’s only been three weeks since I moved here, and you’re going to give up on us already?”
