“Did we?I raced every goon that looked at me funny, and how many times did Charlie catch you shooting street craps?That’s why it was for the best you just let that money go.You won it in an illegal game!”
He jabbed a finger in her direction.“You can’t get everything you want.Sometimes life kicks you in the ass, but then you find out why you needed to go down a different path.”
“You think I don’t know I can’t have everything?My ass is sore from all that kicking, but I expected you to be with me, Billy.It’s called being supportive.Itrustedyou.”
“And I trusted you,” he snapped.“You like to pretend you’re so tough, that you can go it alone.If anyone takes one step wrong with you, you hold them off.No second chances.I deserved better than that.”
She pounded her fist against the mattress.“We could have done it.”
“They wouldn’t have let us!”He paced another lap around the room.“You know they would have been watching us.There was more than one Albert Fenton who wasn’t happy with how we gamed the system.One slip and the authorities would have said we were unfit.”
His voice was quiet but whip sharp.It cut through Roxie’s hurt and anger, startling her.They’d had arguments about this before, but he’d never said that.
He stopped and wrapped his arms around his middle.The leather cuff and the tattoo made him look dangerous, but for once, his wide shoulders seemed scrunched in.“We never would have been able to fight them, and the last thing I’d ever do would be to let a kid of mine grow up the way I did.I stand by my word.It was for the best.”
Roxie’s shoulder blades dug into the headboard.
“I don’t ever want kids.Especially with someone who won’t let me close in the most important way.”His green eyes burned.“And I’m not talking about sex.I never turned on you.You’re the one who shut me out as I was looking you in the face.”
He swore and reached down to sweep up the rest of his clothes.“Every time I’ve managed to crack that door open, you eventually slam it again.So yeah, it’s probably for the best that we split up, too.This time, I think it’s going to take.”
In two steps, he was out the door.
He was gone so fast, Roxie didn’t have time to react.His words had been like blows and, for a moment, she was dazed.They’d argued many times in the past, sometimes about kids and sometimes not.
But they’d never gotten that deep.
“Billy?”she called shakily.
He didn’t respond.
She heard his muffled footsteps cross her living room and the door to her apartment open before slamming shut.It was the sound of his footsteps on the staircase, though, that prompted her out of her paralysis.
“Billy!”
She sprang from the bed, ripping the sheet right off it.Flying out of the room, she barely avoided her favorite red chair as she rushed to the door.
His footsteps were out of hearing range now.Her breaths were too loud in her throat for her to hear anything.
She skidded out into the hallway, barely remembering to cover herself.When she rushed down the stairs, the sheet billowed behind her, making her look like a haunted woman in white.Coming to a stop on the second-floor landing, she pounded on the rental unit’s door.
“Billy?Open the door.”She knocked harder, pounding until her pinkie finger felt numb.“We’re not done.”
A door opened, but it wasn’t the one she was expecting.
“What’s all this racket?”
She spun around.The grouchy old man in 2A glowered at her, but then his caterpillar eyebrows jumped.
“So that billboard wasn’t touched up,” he muttered, his old voice cracking.
She followed his stare down to her chest.Her impromptu toga had slipped, baring her breast.The old pervert.
She tugged the sheet higher and turned her back on him.Switching to her other hand, she began pounding.“Billy!”
“He’s not there,” 2A bellowed.“He just came down this staircase like a team of Clydesdales.There are other people in this building, you know.We deserve some peace and quiet.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Roxie muttered, already moving along.If he wanted peace and quiet, he shouldn’t live next to a bar that stayed open until two in the morning.
