“Wait,” Jason said, confused as hell. “She told you that I was interested?”
“Mmmhmm,” the waitress said, oblivious to the fact that he was fucking pissed.
“Excuse me,” he said tightly, stepping around her.
“I’ll go ask about getting off early,” the waitress announced, sounding giddy.
“Don’t bother,” Jason threw over his shoulder.
He walked over to Haley, placed his hands on the table, and leaned over until he was practically nose-to-nose with her.
“Tell me that you didn’t just try to set me up on a date with the waitress,” he bit out, trying to stop himself from wringing her fucking neck.
“I didn’t set you up, but I did tell her that you might like the band and that you were single,” she simply said, pushing her glasses up her nose.
“I’m single?” Jason repeated weakly.
“Yes,” Haley said hollowly as she looked away.
He slowly pulled away from her and stood up. Swallowing hard, he asked, “Is that what you really want?”
“Yes,” she said without the slightest hesitation, making everything suddenly crystal clear.
He pulled out two twenties and tossed them on the table. “Come on,” he said, heading for the door.
“Where are we going?” Haley asked when she caught up to him.
“Home.”
“Jason? Jason, talk to me. You’re really scaring me.”
For the past six hours, he hadn’t said one word.
When he’d announced that they were going home, she’d thought that he meant back to the cottage. She knew that she shouldn’t have encouraged that waitress. She didn’t want to and had been on the verge of informing the woman that Jason was spoken for when she realized that seeing Jason with another woman might be the one thing that she needed to help her get over him sooner. She had no idea that he’d be this pissed otherwise, she wouldn’t have said anything, but she needed to get over him before she finally gave in to the pain threatening to bring her to her knees.
She loved him so much.
Instead of answering her, he threw the driver’s side door open and popped the trunk. She quickly climbed out of the car just as the outside lights on her house turned on.
“Please talk to me,” Haley said as she watched him grab the three shopping bags of clothes he’d bought and headed for his front door.
“Jason, don’t do this!” she said, unable to stand the thought of ending things like this.
“You want to talk?” Jason asked, slowly turning around to face her.
“Yes,” Haley said, relieved that he was at least talking to her now.
He threw the bags to the side and walked over to her. “Fine. Let’s talk, Haley,” Jason said, getting in her face. “I fucked up. I shouldn’t have let some bitch sell me a line of bullshit and I should have talked to you, but you know what? You screwed up, too.”
“You never even bothered to tell me why you didn’t want to have sex,” when she opened her mouth to argue, he spoke over her, “I know that I could have asked you a thousand different times, but I was too damn happy to care. I wanted to be with you. I loved you, Haley, and I thought you loved me, too. So, when that woman told me that you wouldn’t sleep with me because you didn’t love me, I panicked and did something that I will probably regret for the rest of my life.”
“You regret sleeping with me?” Haley asked, feeling her heart drop.
“Yes, because I hurt you that night and it gave you the excuse that you obviously wanted to break things off,” Jason said, stepping away from her as he rammed his fingers through his hair.
“I wasn’t looking for an excuse to break things off,” Haley sputtered, taking a step towards him.
“Bullshit!”
