Greg’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion at my reply to him.
“How?” He tried to pull me closer to him, but I stayed right where I was with my hand on his chest to keep us separated.
“Is that really a question you have to ask?”
“It is when I’m not sure how I hurt you, especially when I’m the one who’s supposed to be pissed off here.” He readjusted me so I was no longer on his lap but sitting beside him. “You can’t just drop off the face of the earth. No one could get ahold of you. I leave for two damn days and you go fucking AWOL.”
The way he shook his head and looked at me screamed disappointment, but I was disappointed first. He was not going to turn this around on me.
“Max and my team know where I was. Thank you very much. But you, you took another woman on a date and even brought her to the club and introduced her to our friends. How fair do you think that is,especiallywhen I had no clue about it.” I smacked him on the shoulder. “You were supposed to tell me, Greg.”
The last part came out as a choke and I felt a lump in my throat start to form.
“You were supposed to communicate with me on this. That was the whole point to the assignment. Instead you went out and found a random girl and never said anything.” I tried to swallow a gasp, but I couldn’t. The tears fell and I couldn’t hold back what I needed to say any longer.
“You thought you could fix it with a quick fuck and I know that it was all a game that night, but it wasn’t for me. You played with my heart in a way that makes me never want to let you have it again. What you did that night is one of the reasons why I guard my heart so much and why I never let you in like that, because I can’t ever predict you and you always think if you just ignore things they’ll go away.”
I threw my hands up in the air like I had the night of the club, but this time I wasn’t giving up or giving in.
“You run. You ignore things. You aren’t an adult. You’re a child, Greg.”
With each sentence, I jabbed my finger closer to him, trying to get the point across and I knew I looked like a crazy woman because my hair was still in a bun from the other day, and I hadn’t taken the time to redo it.
He sat there speechless, then grabbed for my finger and brought it up to his mouth, biting the pad of it. I pulled away quickly.
“We aren’t solving this with sex, Greg.” He shrugged his shoulder.
“I know that, but I need this conversation to be lighter than it is.” My body relaxed into his, knowing that this wasn’t going to be some game again. That we would be able to talk about what had happened and it mean something. “When I see you like this, I can’t but think I keep messing up.”
“You do, Greg.” He looked away from my, but I reached across and moved his face back to look at me. “But so do I, so that’s talk it out.”
“Ok.” He brought my legs across his lap and I got comfortable in his side with his arm draped over the back of the couch.
“Why did you bring her to the club?” I stopped myself from asking more about this April girl and just wanting to know the important parts, why he brought her there and why he didn’t tell me. “More importantly, why didn’t you tell me…?”
I let the question linger between us and then I saw him ready to speak up.
“After you left our session on Friday, I went out with the guys to one of the local bars. We were getting sloshed and I wasn’t thinking clearly. We started talking about my asking someone on a date and the guys thought it was a horrible idea, but I didn’t even think about what they thought.” He took a deep breath, like he needed to calm himself. “All I could think about was that look you gave me in Tessa’s office that had me believing that we wouldn’t be doing this homework assignment. But then you just fucking left. You didn’t say a word, you just left her office and left me. Wasn’t that was the one thing you said you were afraid I would do?”
“You were being an ass!” I didn’t answer his rhetorical question, because he knew I did the exact thing I was afraid of, but in that moment in Tessa’s office, I was more afraid of the look in Greg’s eyes. “It wasn’t like I couldn’t see that you wanted this. You were smiling when she confirmed all you needed to do was go on a date with someone else. You even pulled your phone out and sent off a text!”
I was shouting now, the anger I had felt from that day coming back like a freight train.
“Stop.” He held his hand up to me and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. His hand lingered against my cheek, rubbing softly against my skin. “I don’t want to yell. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You shouldn’t have.” I crossed my arms against my chest, but Greg unfolded them and held my closer to his chest.
“Let me try again.” Greg begged of me. “Please.”
I waved my hand between us for him to continue, but I really did want to know what he had to say, as long as it wasn’t him accusing me of making this all happen.
“I don’t even remember asking her out, truthfully, but when I woke up on Saturday afternoon to a text from a girl named April, saying I had asked her out on a date that night, I just went through the motions and confirmed everything with the guys and then went on the date. I figured I would tell you everything after we ended the night, but apparently that plan blew up in my face.”
“Ya think?” I huffed at him but looked up to see a smirk on his face. “Why are you smiling?”
“Because you look gorgeous.”
I got up from the couch, running away from his sweet talk and into the kitchen.
