Instead, I didn’t say anything. The thoughts had paralyzed my lips, reducing me to inconsequential and meaningless one-word utterances. Fight as I might for the courage, that courage was only theoretical. There was nothing I could do right now to unearth the words without sounding like a bitch.
Which, at this point, sure seemed inevitable.
“I...”
“What?” Phoenix said, all of the humor and lightheartedness gone out of his voice. He knew the truth. He knew that even if I was feigning enjoyment, something was irking me. “You OK?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“You want to talk about it?”
No. Not really, but...
I sighed, I squirmed, I shifted—I did whatever I could to try, just try, to see if I could blurt out—
“I’m moving in two months.”
...the words I have to say.
And there they are.
“What?”
I sought an explanation, but every time I had an idea for how to say it, it just sounded fucking awful. It made me seem like a real piece of shit.
Which, frankly, I was for not telling Phoenix about this earlier.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
It was really all I could get out. I kept waiting for Phoenix to get up and go to the couch. He would have been fully justified in doing so, fully excused if he had left without a word and left me like a whore in my lonesome self—or better yet, kicked me out. He wouldn’t be treating me any worse than I had been treating him.
But as the silence progressed and the minutes passed and his arms did not leave me, I eventually understood that he wasn’t leaving tonight. He wasn’t going to kick me out.
But that didn’t mean I fell asleep quickly.
* * *
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure when I actually fell asleep. I just knew that at some point, my eyes had closed, and when they had opened again, the room was brighter.
But even though the sunlight was directly pouring through the window, it was still a much colder morning than the evening that had precipitated it.
For starters, I no longer had the thick, muscular arms of Phoenix around me. And even though I knew full well that he was still near—I could hear him shuffling around in the bathroom—I could justfeelthat the environment was different. I had a strong reason to suspect that he had not gotten up to use the bathroom and then come right back for cuddles.
I didn’t see any of his clothes strewn out on the floor. Which meant...
He came back into the room as he put his cut on. The pleasant, playful demeanor that had underlined his behavior yesterday had vanished. Here stood a hard, emotionally distant, tough biker—perhaps a face that looked hot on a poster, but anxiety-inducing in person.
“Get dressed,” he said. “We leave in five.”
“Five?”
“And that’s not negotiable,” he added as he headed to the living room. “You’re leaving my apartment in whatever state of dress you’re in then.”
“Phoenix, wait—”
But he didn’t. Now, I was no longer in control.
