I have no idea what’s caused it, why it came on so suddenly, but I’m going to find out.
We walk past an alley and I gently shove Ansel into it, backing him up against the wall and boxing him in with my forearms. “What’s going on?”
Ansel closes his eyes and inhales slowly. When he opens his eyes, there’s an eerie calmness there. “I need to go home for a few days.”
Is that all? Fuck, I was almost in a panic over this.
“Sure, butterfly. Let me just grab a bag, and we’ll head over there. You know I’ve been dying to see your place.”
There’s that smile again. The fake one. I want to kiss it off his face until his real one reappears, but he speaks before I can do that.
“No, Cade. I need to be alone. I want to be.”
I freeze, and my head tilts to the side. “Why?”
Ansel shrugs, looking at a point over my right shoulder. “Just need some space.”
“You can have that with me there. I’ll be so quiet. The quietest.”
A shadow passes over his eyes. “Cade, no. I don’t want you to come with me.”
My brow furrows.
He swallows. “Please don’t make me do this.”
“Do what?”
“Please,” he whispers, his hands cupping my face. “Please just let me go home…without you. Let me go back to my place and give me space for a few days. That’s all I’m asking for.”
It’s such a simple request. A perfectly reasonable one. A normal man wouldn’t have an issue accepting it.
I’ve never wished to be normal before now.
“No,” I hear myself saying. “It’s not safe. Not while those men are still out there. Maybe if you tell me who they are, then?—”
The bitter laugh that cuts me off has my stomach flipping. It’s so jaded. That’s not the Ansel I’ve come to know. “That’s not happening. I said I want to go alone and I mean it.”
“Fuck that. No. You’re not going. Not without me.”
Ansel rubs a hand across his eyes before squaring his shoulders. “Fine. I didn’t want to do this, I really didn’t, but I have to.”
“Butterfly, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Do you realize how ironic that is?” His temper is rising now. I haven’t seen it since back at the cabin. It doesn’t amuse me like it once did. Seeing it now makes me feel many things, and not a single one of them is amusement. “You’re the one denying me what I want right now.”
My own temper rising to the surface. “Because I’m trying to keep yousafe.”
Ansel’s shoulders droop suddenly. “I don’t want you to keep me safe. I don’t want you near me! It’s over, Cade. Can’t you see? We’d never work together.”
I glance down to see if he’s actually stabbed me. No. It’s just his words slicing my chest open. The blood drips onto the ground near my feet, and I feel slightly faint.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” His gaze meets mine, and another piece of my heart is carved out. My butterfly isn’t lying to me. “I want to be far away from you. I don’t want to be around you.”
One of my hands falls from the wall, and I suddenly feel incredibly small.
“Get out of my sight. You disgust me.”
