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Head lowered, he kicks the toe of his boot against the cart. Not hard, but hard enough to make way too much noise.
“You have to tell me what happened,” I say, as calmly as I can manage. “Then I’ll leave you alone. ”
His head comes up. “You think that’s what I want? For you to leave me alone?”
I don’t know what he wants, so I keep my lips pressed shut.
“He pissed me off because he’s a smug, arrogant prick,” West says. “And I was fucking sick of hearing him talk, all right?”
“So it had nothing to do with me. ”
He rakes his hand through his hair again. Turns away.
“West?”
“I wouldn’t say that. ”
I wait.
It occurs to me that I am good at waiting, and maybe that’s one thing I have on West. He’s more worldly, more confident, but he’s volatile and I’m not. I’ll stand here until he’s done throwing his tantrum, and then he’ll have to tell me.
I wait some more.
He turns back around. “I didn’t do it for you, okay? I just couldn’t take it anymore. He deserved to get beat down, and nobody else was doing it. But if you have some kind of hero fantasy, you can forget it. ”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know. If you’re getting your rocks off thinking I hit your ex because I’ve got a thing for you. ”
“Are you serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be serious?”
For a few seconds, I can’t speak. He’s just yanked me so rapidly from ashamed and awkward to righteously pissed off, my brain is having trouble keeping up. “That’s so … conceited,” I finally manage. “I mean, so, so conceited. After what you just—why would you even say something like that?”
He steps closer. He’s vibrating with emotion, and I can’t sort him out. I don’t know what he’s thinking, how he feels. I only know he feels it a lot. “Why did you touch me?” he asks.
“I was trying to get your attention. ”
“People tap when they’re trying to get someone’s attention. That wasn’t a tap. ”
“It was …”
I’ve got nothing. I groped him, and we both know it. The only thing I can do now is lie. “It was an accident. ”
I hate when he does this. Looms over me this way with those eyes and that face. Looks at me. It is my new least-favorite thing: being looked at by West. Like he’s trying to sex me to death.
“Honey,” he says finally, “that was one hell of a long accident. ”
“Don’t call me honey. ”
“I think you like it. ”
“I think your ears are too small. ”
I nearly groan after I say it. Stupid blurting mouth.
But I had to say something, because honey is degrading to women, totally inappropriate, utterly unexpected. And I do kind of like it.
