“I can’t.” I hear her sniff quietly and pull open my apartment door. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Natalia.” My hand slams against the door above her head and I close it. Her shoulders sag and her head hangs between them. They shake the tiniest bit and I can hear the sound of faint choking coming from her. “Natalia, we can talk about it.”
Please, let’s talk about it.
“It was just sex,” she rasps, her voice more hoarse and raspy than usual.
Not to me.
“Okay,” I mutter. “Then it was just sex. But what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Mind your fucking business, Rowan,” she snapsquietly but her body contradicts her words as her forehead thuds against the door.
“Natalia…” I take a breath and a step, her body’s warmth radiating off against my bare chest. “Do you regret it?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice trembles and I think I hear a crack, loud in my ears—the sound coming from my chest
With my other hand, I hold her hip lightly for merely two seconds before she swats it away. “Don’t do that.” Her head is shaking frantically so I move to cradle her face in my hands. “Rowan, don’t. You’re making a mistake.”
“I’m not making a mistake.”
“You are,” she mutters and steps back, out of my hold. My hands fall, empty. Vacant. “I’m?—”
“Nat—”
“I’m leaving,” she says. “Move.”
“No,” I press again. “You don’t have your car and I’m not letting you call a cab. I’ll drive you.”
“Don’t be awkward about it?—”
“Nothing about it is awkward,” I say. “Why are you running away?”
Natalia groans. “Because we had sex, Rowan! So,now, I leave.”
I blink down at her, her cheeks flushed and curls a frizzy mane around her head. “That’s how sex works?”
“When it’s casual, usually.”
“So…it’s just sex.” I break a little.
“Yes,Rowan,” she states her painful truth. “It’s just sex. We…It was once, right?”
No. “Sure.”
She nods, accepting my agreement. “Great.”
“Good.”
“Good,” she echoes.
“Great.” I sigh. “But I’m driving you back.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Fine,” she groans with an eye roll.
