But keeping up this front is easier than admitting to herself that there is something real between us.
Her head pokes up for a second, and she gives me the brattiest dagger eyes before she lies back down, groaning in pain by the sudden movement.
Grabbing an empty glass, filling it with ice and Gatorade, I walk over to sit on the wooden coffee table. Waiting for Zoe to lift the throw cushion off her face and look at me. She’s going to need to face the room at some point because there is no way in hell Aaron is letting her off the hook that easily, especially not after I opened my mouth.
“Drink this,” I order.
“Go away,” she whisper yells.
“Are you mad at him for the rose explosion at your office?” Tristan asks, sounding far too amused.
“Yes… Wait, how do you know about that?”
Tristan laughs. “It’s all over the internet. You’re sort of famous now.”
Zoe springs up, forgetting about her splitting headache. I hand her the glass of cold Gatorade, and she takes it without a fight.
“Did you take the Advil on the side of your bed?” I arch a brow at her.
Her brows pull together. “That was you?”
“Did you take it?” I ask again, my tone a bit more firm this time.
She nods, and I stand up, needing to put some distance between us. It hurts to be this close to her and not touch her, hold her, kiss her. After that night on the couch, a dam broke inside me, and everything I’ve been protecting, everything I’ve been pushing away, came rushing back but with such a potent force. I can’t contain any of it anymore.
I have no desire to distance myself from Zoe, nor can I deceive myself into thinking that I can easily move on from this. That was before. This is now.
I wanted so badly to take her last night, to be with her. Everything she was saying was what I’ve been dying to hear, and in her drunken state, she finally let me take a peek inside her head. And as much as I wanted to pull more out of her, I knew she wouldn’t remember it and she’d likely hate herself more if she learned her tongue was incredibly loose. Given everything that’s happened, I want to do things right from here on out. The next time we’re together, it’s going to be because she wants to be, because she knows who she belongs to.
The next time we’re together, it’s going to feel real, and she’s going to know just how much she means to me.
No more hiding. No more secrets.
I’ve been completely truthful with her for days, demonstrating my sincerity in every way I can, and there’s still so much more to come. Just because she wants to reject all my efforts doesn’t mean I’ll quit trying. I’m done pretending, done fighting against our current.
“How bad, Tris?” Zoe asks, watching us while we stand in the kitchen.
“What did I miss?” Aaron interrupts, turning toward me, but I ignore him as I reach for my coffee.
“It’s good, actually. It’s really driving the message home. People think you two are actually a couple and are buying into it.”
“Good for who? Him? Is that all the three of you care about? I had to work extra late last night because I was cleaning up roses from every fucking surface of the office. My boss was pissed, and now people are spreading new rumors about me, as if the old ones from Boston weren’t enough. There isn’t another office for me to get transferred to. Next time, I’m getting fired.”
Shit. I should have thought more about this. Now I feel like a total fucking asshole.
“I’m sorry,” I utter, nearly choking on my guilt.
“It’s too late for that, Dominik. Stick to the original plan. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t need your shitty grand gestures.”
She can’t even look at me when she speaks.
“Why did you do all this?” Aaron looks up from his phone, glancing away from the video Tristan was talking about.
He’s observing me, knowing that something is off. I can sense his suspicion, and truth be told, he’s not wrong. Lately, I’ve been veering off my usual track, wrestling with my thoughts, obsessing over ways to convince Zoe that the person she met at the ball in Boston was the genuine me. It was us, unmasked. Even though I concealed my identity, every moment shared with her and every emotion I harbor for her is unequivocally real. It’s always been real, even when I tried to deny it to myself. But she refuses to see any of that, attributing it all to this fake dating arrangement we agreed to right here in this room. The harder I attempt, the more it seems to fail on me. Maybe I should dial it back for a little bit.
“Dominik?” Aaron asks again, and I can feel Zoe and Tristan’s eyes on me now too, waiting for my answer.
But all I want to say is how desperate I am for her forgiveness. That I would give anything to start over with Zoe, and I’m terrified that I ruined my chances forever. I can’t say any of that though.
