I’m making lunch when a ding from my private elevator tells me someone’s visiting. Confused who it could be, as only a handful of people have the code to my penthouse, I crane my neck around the pillar between my kitchen and the entryway that’s blocking my view just as the doors slide open.
Erika.
Shit.
An entire month has passed since our disastrous kiss in the equipment room.
She’s texted me several times, but the fucking asshole that lives inside of me hasn’t replied. Not once.
After she called me a fuckboy, I haven’t actually slept with anyone. I don’t want to.
Is it to clean up my act?
Or to clean up my reputation?
It’s both.
But I’m also determined to prove Erika wrong.
Her comment threw me for a loop, and since then, my mind’s been spiraling. She hit a nerve, shocking me to my very core. It was too honest. Too brutal.
A truth I wasn’t ready for.
I guess it’s time to grow the fuck up and keep my dick in my pants.
If I’m being honest, her jealousy—that’s what I think it was—felt like a hot poker being jabbed through my heart. She’s never fully admitted whether she likes me or not. I figured she wouldn’t have kissed me if she didn’t, but I’m still clueless because not once has she ever made a move. It’s me who made the first one, and the second, and she didn’t exactly put up a fight.
“Hi,” she greets me, gingerly entering my apartment and worrying her bottom lip.
Erika’s been here hundreds of times, but today feels different, like we’ve had a lover’s quarrel, minus the lover part, with neither of us knowing what to say or do next to fix our relationship.
Fuck. We’re not even together, so there was no breakup either.
This is so confusing.
“What are you doing here?” I ask much harsher than I mean to.Cool it, Leon.
She hesitates. “I haven’t seen you in a month, and you haven’t replied to my texts. I came to see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine.” I’m anything but fine. It’s hard to concentrate when she’s nearby. Sometimes it’s even worse when she’s not around. Every thought I have revolves around her. She consumes my mind.What is she doing now? Who is she talking to? Did she have a rough day? Did she eat? Who did she lunch with? What did she learn today at the hospital? Did anyone shove something up their ass today and say they fell on it?That happens more often than you’d think.
She walks to the kitchen island and lays her purse on it. “You don’t sound fine.”
“I am.”
“You sound like you’re still mad at me.”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve been avoiding me?”
“Ihavenot.”
“Don’t lie to me, Leon.”
I stretch out my arms and hold the edge of the marble work surface, tightening my grip, tilting my head to the side, and staring her down. “I’m not lying.”
As if bewildered by this shielded person I’ve become, she sighs. “I know you, and I know you are lying; that’s why I came to apologize. I don’t want us to fight.”
