“I’m not drunk.”
“Bullshit. I could smell the vodka from six feet away,” I say.
“I’m sure you could,” she replies. “My creepy date basically doused me in it before I could get away from him.”
I loosen my grip on her, taking a step back.
The muscles in my jaw tighten as I process it all. Hazel on a date with another guy. Some shithead who spilled a drink all over her and whatever else he did to earn the title of ‘creep’.
Within an hour, I could have that man tracked down and killed.
Or worse.
Yes, there are worse things than being killed. Things I’m not above inflicting on a man from time to time, when the occasion calls for it.
Hazel must know what I’m thinking, because she shakes her head.
“No.”
“No, what?”
“No to whatever fucked up revenge you’re plotting in your head right now,” she says, adjusting the strap on her purse and reaching for the door. “He didn’t do it on purpose. He was just drunk and clumsy.”
“And creepy.”
She nods slowly.
“Run-of-the-mill creepy,” she says. “Not ‘kidnap you and lock you in my basement’ creepy. I’m fine. I don’t need your protection and I’m not your property.”
“Not anymore,” I reply before I can stop myself.
Her choice. Her decision to walk away, not mine.
“Not anymore?” she repeats with a small laugh. “See, that’s the problem. I thought you were my soulmate, and you thought I was your property. All I ever was to you was a convenient toy to warm your bed at night. Nothing else.”
“Don’t do that,” I growl.
“Don’t do what?”
“Cheapen what we had together,” I say. “Maybe I wasn’t able to give you everything you wanted. But what we had together was more than just fucking.”
Hazel’s eyes soften. She opens her mouth as though to say something, then closes it.
“What?” I ask.
“You have no idea how badly I wanted to hear those words from you last year,” she says. “I needed something,anythingfrom you. A reason to stay and not leave. But tonight you’ve said the words I needed last year and I feel…”
I wait for her to finish the sentence, not sure why I’m hanging onto every fucking word she says. As though it matters. As though any of this shit matters anymore.
“You feel what?” I snap, relenting and giving in to my need to know how that sentence ends.
“Nothing,” she says sadly. “I feel nothing.”
2
Hazel
Lyingto Vincent was never my strong suit, but tonight I succeeded.
