My heart dropped.
She swore softly to herself.
“If you don’t feel the same …” I started but was barely able to finish the thought, let alone the sentence. Had I imagined this thing between us?
“No! I …” She caught herself. “Jackson, I really care about you. You have to know that. But this has just all gone so fast, and I don’t know how to do this right now.”
She wasn’t making sense. “I don’t understand.”
She didn’t answer.
I was at a loss. I wanted to say the right thing, but I wasn’t sure what that even was. “Audrey,” and it came out like a question. Like a plea.
She was quiet as I watched a myriad of emotions cross her face, her lips twitching with unsaid words. Eventually, after a long exhale, she whispered, “I think I better go.”
I reach out, pleased this time when she didn’t shy away. “Please stay. We should talk about this.”
Taking a seat, I was hopeful when she did the same, but it waned when she couldn’t quite meet my eye. When she didn’t say anything after a minute, I tentatively unwound her hands where they were tightly clenched on her lap and clasped one between my own.
This broke her silence. “I’m not … I can’t …” She pinched her nose with her free hand, clearly pained at not being able to find the words.
It was equally frustrating that she couldn’t tell me what was going on in her head.
I couldn’t understand what had changed, and she wouldn’t explain it. I wanted to make it right, to fix it. I just needed her to tell me what I could do to help us get past this. Why was this so hard? Yesterday, everything had been easy, and now it was complicated.
I was scrambling to figure out what was going on. “Is this about the podcast? Do you want me to tell everyone how I feel about you? Because I’ll do that. I can get on Twitter right now and tell everyone how much you mean to me.”Help me fix this.
“No,” she said, pulling her hands out of my grasp, and my jaw clenched as my annoyance built.Talk to me, I wanted to scream.
“I don’t want that. I …” She cut herself off again with a frustrated groan, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Audrey. Talk to me.” My voice was firm. “What do you want?” I felt like a broken record.
“You know what I want?” Her voice cracked, but there was no mistaking the fire behind it. “I want not to be having this conversation. I want not to have to choose between you and my work. I want to go back to how it was before. I want it to be easier.” She shook her head. “We should have just kept it casual. Good thing you covered yourself in that interview. It’ll be easier this way.”
My pulse stuttered, caught between thrumming in anger and halting in panic. Where was this coming from?
I made a move toward her and couldn’t hide the look of hurt when she shied away from me and took a step back out of my reach. Frustrated, I dragged a hand through my hair. “Is that what this is about? The damn interview? I told you. I was protecting you.”
“I never asked you to do that! I can take care of myself.”
“I never said you couldn’t!”
If she heard me, I couldn’t tell. She started to pace. “And what about the post about the rum? Was that to protect me?”
“What?” It took me a moment to think back, understand what she was referring to. “I did that to support you. I thought you’d be happy.”
“You didn’t even ask me.”
I stiffened. “I didn’t think I needed to.”
“It’s not that …” She deflated somewhat, pausing mid-stride. “I don’t need you to fix my problems for me, Jackson. I can handle it. Why doesn’t anyone get that?”
“I know you don’t need me to, but I want to.”
“Well, I don’t want that.”
I paused, knowing I might not like the answer, but determined to ask anyway. “What do you want?”
