Page 9 of Hash

“And I’m trying to keep my cool, but you’re making it pretty goddamn hard.”

“How am I making it hard?” I exclaim. He can’t be fucking serious right now.

“Because the vibe I’m getting is that you think I’m ashamed of you or some bullshit, which is a dig to me and what I stand for. Glad I know what you think of me now, baby doll.”

“Whoa,” I gush out, shaking my head as my face scrunches up in disbelief. “I think you need to chill out because that isn’t what I meant by that.”

“Easy, Aisling.” Hash’s tone sends a chill down my spine, and not in a good way. In a downright scary way. “You haven’t been with a man like me, but let me educate you. You do not tell a man like me to chill out.”

“But you’re not listening to me!”

Anxiety is bubbling in the pit of my stomach from this conversation spiraling so far away from where I wanted it to go, and I do not know how to get it back on track. I feel that if I tell him what I wanted to say, it’s just going to set him off even more.

“Oh, I’m listening to you. I listen to every word you say.”

You know what?

Fuck this and fuck him for jumping down my throat with his bullshit accusations, acting like I’m coming at him some sort of way.

“I’ve never met your friends! I’ve never even been to your place! Every single time we hang out, it’s either with my friends or we’re tucked away at my place. It’s been months. Months of this. Every time we make plans, I’m like a dog begging for a bone, waiting for you to invite me into your world. What am I supposed to think, Hash?” I yell as I throw myself back in my seat, my hands flying up in the air.

“You don’t belong in my world.”

I suck in an audible breath as I’m frozen in place, staring at him like a deer in the headlights. The wind feels like it was just knocked out of me, like he just socked me in the gut. He might as well have ripped my heart out and stomped on it.

You don’t belong in my world.

“Aisling.” Hash’s voice is low and laced with regret, but he doesn’t take it back.

Tears are pooling in the corner of my eye as I continue to stare at the man I was ready to give everything to.

He took that away with six words.

“Thanks for the pizza, but I think I’m going to call it a night.” I don’t recognize my own voice. It’s taking everything in me to hold it together. I won’t let someone who told me I don’t belong in his world see me at my worst. He doesn’t get that side of me.

“Aisling,” Hash repeats.

“Just go,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.

What else is there to say?

My attention is still on Hash, but I can’t see him. My focus is blurred, full of tears threatening to fall.

I hear his beer bottle clink against the glass top of the table. He doesn’t say a word as he gets up and walks out.

How can someone I was going to tell I’m in love with walk away from me without so much as saying a single word to me?

An asshole that’s who.

An asshole who doesn’t think I’m good enough for his world.

Chapter

Four

HASH

The hardest thing I’ve ever fucking done in my life is walk away from her.