It’s even harder for me to accept that I’m upset about it. I have no claim to the man. In fact, I have no right at all to feel this way. But that’s always been the problem with me and my stupid anxious-avoidant attachment. The second someone starts to give me attention, it’s like I hold on to it for dear life to forget that I’m normally on my own. My old therapist said it was a trauma response to losing my family—that I crave attention and validation. As I got older, I shifted to avoidance. When people gave me attention, I wouldn’t give them the full me. Because if I don’t even like me, how can anybody else?
If I still went to that kind, older woman that I’d met with once a week for almost two years after my parents’ passing, she’d tell me I’m forming a pattern. Maybe she’d even tell me that Thomas Moskins is not the type of man you fall in love with. He’s the kind that your mother warns you away from because he’ll break your heart. After all, I don’t have a mom to heed those warnings.
I want nothing to do with heartbreak. Losing my parents was the biggest one I could have faced. Adding an unavailable man to my life would cause nothing but trouble.
It would be really nice if my body got on board with that sentiment before I let him do something stupid to me.
“You can feel bad about what?” he presses, his voice uncharacteristically soft compared to before.
I close my eyes and realize I backed myself into a metaphorical corner. “Nothing,” I say, hoping he’ll drop it.
He doesn’t. “Tell me.”
Bite me, is what I almost say in retort. Problem is, he’d probably grin and say,happily. So I hold that response in and swallow it like the bitterness I felt all day long.
“Winter,” he says slowly. “Tell me.”
When I peek at him, he’s staring at me.
Hard.
We’re stopped at another red light, the last one until we turn onto the street that will take me to my apartment. His eyes pin me to my seat, the blue-gray color fiercely impatient.
I let out a shallow breath and give in because I have a feeling he won’t let it go otherwise. “I was jealous, okay? Happy now?”
For once, he’s quiet.
Too quiet.
Contemplative.
His lips rub together until someone behind us honks at the light that’s finally green.
Moskins nods once and starts driving again.
But we don’t turn onto the street that leads to my place. We keep going straight.
“You missed the turn,” I tell him, looking out the window with a frown. Is this where he takes me to the woods and tortures me? Rats me out to Emaly for being jealous? Goes to Janel?
I turn to him, worried. “Moskins, we missed—”
“I know,” he cuts me off, staring forward and not giving me his attention. “And I don’t want you calling me that anymore.”
My brows pinch. “What? You said you prefer being called—”
“From now on,” he says, cutting me off, “it’s Thomas to you. Just not…not Tommy. Please.”
Concern blossoms in my chest, and I regret being honest with him. What is he thinking? Why does he look like that? Pained and…and sad andangry?
“Where are we going?” I don’t call him by the name he wants me to. I can’t. It feels too intimate.
That concern blooms into something completely different when he says, “My place.”
*
I don’t knowwhy I follow him into the house that seems even bigger inside than it does from the brick exterior. It’s a beautiful home, full of warm woods, open space, and a cozy ambiance that seems so unlike anything he would enjoy. I never pictured where he lives, but it’s certainly notthis.
As soon as the door is closed behind us, he sets Oreo’s carrier down and lets her loose. She shoots out and runs as fast as her little legs can go until she’s out of sight.
