“Whatis that noise?” I asked as the buzzing continued. “Is it your phone?”
He took his cell from his jacket, cleared a call, and set it on the table. “Olivia, do you know how it felt to spend those two days with you and then have you withdraw again? I can’t make this better if you won’t tell me what’s on your mind. Even—especially—the ugly shit you don’t want anyone to see. Remember the bath? You and me? Remember how nice you felt after opening up? Remember—”
“I told you,” I snapped, clasping my hand over my heart. “I’m empty inside! I’m trying, but I warned you, David. What if I just can’t give you what you need? I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Everything,” he shot back, and his fist hit the table. “I want it all. Don’t say you’re empty. That’s an excuse, and you know it. I’ve seen the way you can love me. I feel it in your touch, in the way you give yourself over. Just admit that you’re fucking afraid and that I’m not worth taking the risk for.”
“Goddamnit,” I hissed to myself, pressing my palms against my forehead. “Answer your phone. It’s driving me crazy.”
“We’re not finished.”
“Someone obviously needs to get ahold of you.”
David looked at me for a long moment before answering the call and holding his phone to his ear. “Now is not a good—whoa, Jessa. Slow down. What’s wrong?” At his sister’s name, I stilled. “The ER?” he asked. “Why?” David’s face fell as he listened. “All right, I’m coming now.”
He hung up and motioned to the waiter.
“David, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“That was my sister.” He slipped his phone into his suit jacket. “Alex is in the hospital—emergency appendectomy.”
“Surgery?” Before I could stop it, my stomach roiled with visions of scalpels, blood, and doctors in latex gloves. “Oh, God. Is he all right?”
“I have no idea. I could barely understand her through her crying.” He stood. “I have to get over there.”
“You go ahead,” I said. “I can finish up here.”
He handed a credit card to the waiter for the wine and demanded my coat. No doubt because of David’s tone, the waiter jogged off with the card.
I was about to offer to go with him when he cut me off. “I’ll get you a cab home.”
“I—home?” Our argument seemed unimportant right then, but would he feel that way, too? “You mean . . . should I go—back to your apartment?”
“Where else?” he asked with a funny look. He took my coat and the bill from the waiter, signed it, and strode to the exit, pausing only long enough to hold the door for me. He handed the valet his ticket and moved to the curb to search for a cab.
“I can get my own cab,” I said. “Alex needs you.”
“Right,” he mumbled, turning to me. He took my coat and drew it around my shoulders. “Hopefully I’ll get back tonight, but I might have to stay with them. We’ll finish this discussion tomorrow.”
“We—I leave for Dallas in the morning,” I said.
He froze, holding my lapels closed. “Without me?”
The whole point of the trip had been to introduce David to my dad, but since then, it’d become just as much about returning home after an arduous few months. Instead of being a cheating wife or a girlfriend who couldn’t measure up to David’s expectations, I just wanted to be my dad’s daughter for a bit.
I stammered for a response. “I-I don’t know where you and I stand right now. Do you?”
He tilted his head. “Not exactly.”
“And Alex needs you. Go be with him. I’ll go to my dad’s. When I get back, we can talk.”
His brown eyes roamed over me, lingering on my red lips until his car pulled up. “I . . .”
I love you. I waited for him to reassure me it was still true, but instead, he swallowed. “Text me when you get to the apartment,” he said and released me to get the car.
We were just going to leave things like that? I couldn’t just let him go while he possibly thought I was having second thoughts about us. I only doubted myself. Not him. Not us.
I ran after him, grabbed his forearm, rose onto the tips of my toes, and kissed his cheek. He caught me before I pulled back and quickly pressed his lips to mine. I wiped away the red lipstick I’d left behind. “Let me know when you find out about Alex,” I said softly.
