“Don’t lie to me, you stupid bitch. It’s already dark outside, and you’re going to tell me you were working? With who? Who is he?”
“There is no he, Blake. There isn’t anyone else.” My hands flailed out around me, like they tended to do when I got worked up.
His hand connected with my face in a brutal slap as he gripped my jaw tightly. “You were with someone. I know you were. You couldn’t answer your phone when you had him balls-deep in your cunt, could you?”
Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Adrenaline pumped through my veins making my coil with tension. I pushed his chest, creating space between us, and positioned myself with an out. I couldn’t let myself be backedinto a corner. Not again. “There isn’t anyone else, Blake,” I screamed. So much for not getting defensive. “I told you, I was doing the final walk-through for tomorrow’s grand opening. It was just me and Chloe.”
I rarely called her by her first name. The platinum blonde, sixty-two-year-old oozed old money. She always went by a formal title, but I knew that saying her name here would help Blake remember that I was working with a woman. I took in a shaky breath, adrenaline, pain, and anxiety making it hard to remember to de-escalate the situation instead of making it worse.
“You answer your fucking phone next time I call. Do you hear me? You’re lucky I don’t set all your shit on fire for disrespecting me. Next time, I’ll set this fucking apartment on fire and tie you to the fucking bed. You answer your phone when I call.”
Who says shit like that?He was acting insane. This wasn’t the Blake that I fell in love with; the drugs and alcohol had turned him into an imposter of the man I knew. I didn’t like this version of him, and I didn’t have to deal with it.
“I don’t need to take this. Get out,” I shouted, pointing to the door.
Blake refused to leave, claiming this was his apartment too. We fought until the early hours of the morning until Blake passed out, and I settled in on the couch for the night.
The next morning, I was woken up to something hard and cold on my face. I snapped my eyes open and flinched away from him.
“It’s an ice pack, baby. Keep it on your cheek,” he said gently.
“Oh, thanks,” I mumbled. I didn’t know what to think. I loved Blake with all my heart. This Blake. Whoever that otherperson was, it wasn’t the man I knew and loved.
“I hate when we fight,” he said, pulling my legs up so he could sit and then laying them back across his lap. “It just makes me so scared when you don’t answer your phone like that.”
“I’m sorry. I was in a work meeting. I couldn’t step out, but I would have called you back.”
“I know, baby. That’s okay. You just can’t let that happen again.”
I wasn’t the one in the wrong. How did I become the one apologizing? As much as I wanted to raise that point, I didn’t want to set him off again. It was easier to just let this one slide.
* * *
Present Day
I woke in a cold sweat. Lingering images of fire licked the walls and all the way up to my ceiling from my dream. The feeling of being trapped, suffocating in the clouds of smoke, clawed at my mind.
It was the same nightmare that had been playing on my mind for the past year. Ever since Blake told me that he would set the apartment on fire with me in it. He wouldn’t. Even in his worst moments, he wouldn’t have done that. I didn’t think.
It didn’t stop the dream though.
I flipped my pillow over and flopped back onto the soft bed.I could hear Sebastian moving around the house, but I was in no rush to see him. Last night felt like the opening of old wounds. Or maybe the closing of them? I wasn’t really sure, and processing everything felt too heavy to deal with right now.
Blake had been out of my life for months, but that didn’t mean I was ready to enter into anything else. Not that Seb was offering anything either. He was a well-known flirt. Not exactly someone looking to get into anything serious, but he said some things last night that I couldn’t unhear.
My mind whizzed and whirled in a kaleidoscope of passing thoughts and emotions. This was so much easier when I couldn’t stand him. When he was nothing more than the first guy to break my heart.
A buzzing sounded from my nightstand just as the front door closed.
I grabbed my phone to see a text from Seb.
Seb: Coffee is all yours. Breakfast is on the counter if you want it.
Damn it. So much easier before.
After I showered, dressed, and obviously ate the breakfast that Seb had left for me, I fired up my computer. SD Ink’s social media was growing, and his business definitely seemed to be busier, but that could also be attributed to the warmer weather and longer days. I needed to come up with something else that could take his business to the next level.
I backed up all the images and videos from my camera and my phone. So many of them were solely focused on the artwork, but every once in a while, I had one with Seb in the shot. Not with his head down, working, but looking at the camera, at me, with that stupid, sexy grin of his.
