I wet my lips, fighting off my immediate reaction, tasting the frustration on my tongue. “So, I’ll have to wait, then? Until you break up with this fake boyfriend of yours, all because you don’t want some low-life idiot to say something?”
“You don’t get it, Finn,” she mutters, the walls behind her eyes slamming shut.
“So explain it to me. I don’t want to have to wait to show you off. I’m at your office constantly. Does that mean I can’t touch you in front of anyone? That when we’re out in public, I need to do a scan of the room to make sure nobody from your office is around? We’ve already been out together, Aubrey. There was the risk of getting caught at the concert or when I was carrying you down the street with your lips stained blue from lemonade. Why does it matter now and not then?”
“Because it was different!” She takes a step back, and I let my hands fall to my sides before curling my fingers to keep from reaching for her again. “This is about myjob. Attending the gala with you as my date, where I’m going to want to spend the entire night dancing with you and kissing you, and doing everything I can to make sure everyone knows that you’re mine, isn’t a risk I want to take when it could get thrown in my face on a professional level. It’s easier this way. Can’t you try to understand that I’m not doing this because I don’t want to go with you?”
“I do understand,” I say, voice biting. “That doesn’t mean I like it. Or that I’m okay with you attending with someone else. Who would you take? Malik? One of the other dates that you’ve had? Do you expect me to just not care that you’ll be doing all of those things that you should be doing with me with one of them?”
“It was always the plan for me to take someone else to the gala. We agreed on that weeks ago.”
“Yeah, before things changed. Before I fell in love with you and realized I can’t handle you going with anyone but me!”
Spinning, I pull my baseball cap off and run frantic fingers through my hair. I slap it on backward this time and glare at the pool instead of Aubrey.
“I have to,” she replies, sounding off balance, like she might be struggling as badly as I am.
But she doesn’t change her mind, and that tells me she isn’t.
“Then I don’t know what to say. I’m not going to change my mind about what I’m okay with and what I’m not. If you go with someone else, I . . .”
Her inhale is sharp, afraid. “You what? Will end this? Walk away?”
“Is that what you want me to do?”
“No! Of course that isn’t what I want. Don’t hate me for this, Finn. You know how much my job means to me.”
“More than I do?”
Fuck. I don’t know why I asked that.
It’s selfish and unfair. The comparison isn’t equal in the slightest, yet I don’t take it back. Maybe I care more about her answer than I thought. Shouldn’t the answer be simple, even if I shouldn’t have asked for it in the first place?
“I’ve worked so hard to get where I am,” she whispers.
“And I’m proud of you. I’ve always been so, so proud of you.”
“Don’t say but.”
I shake my head and look at her, taking in the devastation that’s eating at all the previous happiness I found in her eyes just minutes ago. It’s almost enough to have me taking this all back and shoving every word into a locked drawer, never to be opened again.
“I’m not going to,” I state, keeping my tone dull, empty. “I’ll find someone to take you home.”
She tucks her fingers into the collar of her tank top, gripping it. “You’re not going to?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Just give me a few minutes.”
“If that’s what you want.”
It’s not anywhere close to what I want, but I still force myself to walk away.
38
Brielle flicksher wrist and grunts while ripping the wax strip from my armpit.
“Tell me again why you stopped going to a professional for this?” she asks while I let out the breath I was holding.
The pain starts to fade, and I ready myself for her to slather more wax onto my flaming skin. I pull my arm back a bit more and press my bicep to my cheek.
