The hallway suddenly felt too narrow, the walls closing in as Kevin shifted his weight forward. He wouldn’t do anything physical, he wouldn’t dare mess up his clothes or hair. He also didn’t like to be less than perfect at all times.
That should have been my first clue.
"Don't be cute, Kelly. This is exactly what I'm talking about. You never take my needs into consideration. I work sixty-hour weeks while you sit at home playing detective on your little podcast, and the one night I might have free, you make plans without asking me?"
Me, me, me, me. He only ever talked about himself and his needs. She’d spent far too much time, frankly, thinking about his needs and wants rather than her own.
That ends now.
And there it was again. The dismissal of her work. As if investigating cold cases, giving voices to victims whose killers had never faced justice, was some kind of frivolous hobby. Kevin wasn’t exactly curing cancer with his career. He worked on mergers and acquisitions, basically making rich people richer.
Kelly's jaw tightened, her muscles aching from clenching her teeth to keep from saying so many things she didn’t want to say. They wouldn’t make any difference anyway.
Despite what she’d said to her roommates, she'd been considering ending things with Kevin for weeks now, planning to wait until after Celia's wedding. She urgently needed a buffer between herself and her family's inevitable disappointment, and Kevin had reluctantly agreed to be that for her.
But standing here now, watching him work himself into a self-righteous fury over her audacity to have dinner withher roommates, Kelly wondered if she could actually stomach another week of this relationship, wedding buffer or not.
Yes, it was a shitty reason to date someone, but she was desperate. Incredibly desperate. At the time that he’d said he’d go, he hadn’t seemed this fucking annoying and assholish. Now she couldn’t imagine spending any time with him of her own free will.
"I'm allowed to have plans with my friends. And my podcast isn't a game. It’s my career." Kelly crossed her arms, creating a physical barrier between them. "You knew that when we started dating."
Kevin laughed, rolling his eyes in a dismissive manner. If he didn’t like something, he didn’t think anyone else should either. In fact, if he hadn’t thought of it, it couldn’t possibly be a good idea.
"Career? Please. A real career has benefits, a retirement plan, and colleagues who don't wear pajamas to work. What you have is an expensive hobby that barely pays the bills."
His words stung precisely because they echoed her father's. He’d probably get on great with her dear old dad. Two peas in a pod. She was shocked that she hadn’t seen the similarities until now. She’d willfully kept her eyes closed about that, too.
"My podcast reaches thousands of people," Kelly said, heat rising in her cheeks. "I've helped families get answers about their loved ones' disappearances. Just because it doesn't fit your definition of success doesn't mean it isn't valuable."
She was wasting her time and her breath. She couldn’t convince Kevin of anything he didn’t want to believe.
He took another step forward, and Kelly instinctively backed up until she felt the wall behind her. His cologne, expensive and overbearing, filled her lungs as he leaned in, lowering his voice to that patronizing tone he used when he thought he was being reasonable.
God, she hated it. He thought he was the smartest man on the planet.
"Honey, I'm just thinking about your future. Our future. If we're going to build a life together, we need stability. You can't expect me to support your little detective games forever."
Forever? The word echoed in Kelly's mind, setting off alarm bells. Kevin had never mentioned a future before. At least not explicitly. Was this his way of saying he saw their relationship heading toward marriage? The thought made her stomach clench. They hadn’t been together long enough to even contemplate a true commitment.
"I've never asked you to support me," Kelly said, her voice stronger now. "I pay my own rent. I buy my own groceries. And I certainly don't need your permission to have dinner with Amy and Dina.”
Kevin's face hardened, his lawyer persona taking over completely. It wasn’t an attractive transformation.
"This isn't about permission. This is about respect. About consideration. You're being selfish. Selfish and immature."
"No, Kevin. I'm being an independent adult with my own life. Which apparently you can't handle. And don’t call me honey, by the way."
He took another step closer, his body now uncomfortably near hers. Kelly could feel her heart hammering against her ribs, not from fear but from the adrenaline of confrontation. Her upbringing had made her uncomfortable with it, and she avoided it as much as humanly possible. She didn’t even send back the wrong food at a restaurant.
"You want to talk about handling things? How about we discuss how you can't handle criticism? How you shut down every time I try to help you improve your life?"
His finger jabbed the air inches from her face again, and Kelly had the sudden urge to bite it. Instead, she pressed herselfharder against the wall, wishing she could simply disappear into thin air and escape this conversation.
What was the point? She wasn’t going to give in, and neither was he. They were at an impasse. Did he actually think she was going to cave?
"Excuse me." A deep, but familiar, voice cut through the tension. "Is everything alright here?"
Kelly's gaze snapped to the source of the interruption. Ben Reilly stood a few feet away, his expression concerned as he took in the scene before him. He'd clearly just returned from somewhere, keys still in hand, a grocery bag tucked under one arm.
