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She leaves me in the kitchen with a bunch of delicious food I have no plans to eat. I have no appetite anymore. Not that kind of appetite, anyway.
I turn off the burners and dig around for containers to store the food in. I clean up my mess while I run through the way our interaction just went.
What do I really want from her? Just sex? Payback because she was the one who left me? Or something I’m not ready to admit I’m looking for?
The same questions keep ringing in my head until it’s fucking maddening. I decide to go out. It’s late as hell, but I’m sure some of the guys are at the bars, so I pull out my phone and shoot off a few texts while I linger in the kitchen.
Ten minutes later, I’ve changed to go out and Mia comes out of the bedroom dressed for bed in another oversized t-shirt with plenty of leg showing. Her hair is down and wild. She looks absolutely irresistible, and I wish I could simply command her to go lie down and wait for me to come rock her fucking world tonight. Casually rock her world, that is. It wouldn’t have to mean anything.
“You changed?” she asks. “Going somewhere?”
“Maybe,” I say.
“Where? It’s so late.”
“A few of the guys are at a bar in town. I figure I’ll go.”
“Why?”
I frown. Her question pisses me off, so I decide to answer truthfully. “Because I figure I need to get laid or I’m going to keep acting like an idiot around you.”
I turn and grab the door, but Mia’s voice stops me.
“Wait. Nolan, just… wait a second.”
I turn and see she’s fiddling with the hem of her shirt and bouncing on her toes.
“What?” I snap.
“I just… What if I don’t want you to go hook up with some random girl?”
A thousand thoughts run through my head at the same moment. But I take my hand off the door and turn to face her, taking one step closer. “Then I would ask what you’re going to do to stop me.”
She fidgets again, breaking eye contact and clutching her arm. “All I can do is ask.”
I laugh. “Not good enough.”
“I can promise I don’t want anything to do with Zander.”
“Closer.”
“I can… You could have the bed?” she tries. “It’s huge. We could just stay on our own sides.”
Part of me feels like shit for making her beg like this. Honestly, my desire to go fuck some random woman evaporated the moment Mia showed a hint of resistance to the idea. But I wait a few long seconds just to see her squirm. I lower my voice. I still feel a thudding kind of anger in my chest. I keep thinking of the way she sounded so confident that ending things between us was the right choice. Maybe I don’t know what the hell I want, but at least I’m not pretending I know what we did made sense.
“You want me to sleep in your bed?” I ask.
She opens her mouth, lifting her palms helplessly. “I don’t know, Nolan. I just… I–”
I want to make her hurt, even if it’s just a fragment of what she’s made me feel already. “Nah,” I say, finishing the buttons on my coat and putting my hand on the door knob. “You say you can’t be what I want? Maybe the problem is you don’t know what you want. Let me know when you figure that out, Calloway.”
I step out into the cold and pull the door shut, feeling vaguely like shit. I wanted to make her hurt, but I already regret it. I push the regret from my thoughts and walk into town, heading for one of the bars.
10
MIA
Icould make my coffee at work, but I linger in the kitchen, part of me hoping the sound wakes Nolan. I can see his shape on the couch. To my surprise, he’s there by himself. I halfway expected to see a woman with him. I imagine he would just love that–parading some girl around here in one of his old t-shirts, rubbing what he did last night in my face.
