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“Oh. I saw that jacket…” He laughed. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. It belongs to a friend of mine.”
A friend.
A motherfucking friend.
He tightened his grip on the flowers, stepping back. She was leaving, had known she was leaving for weeks, and didn’t even tell him. That’s how much he meant to her.
He didn’t even get a fucking heads-up.
Shaking his head, he looked down at the flowers he’d bought for Shelby, tightened his grip on them, and turned on his heel, heading for the elevators. As he waited for it to come, he tossed the flowers in the overfilled trash can by the doors. Here he was, thinking he was falling for her, and she was planning on leaving him…
Without even telling him about it first.
He’d known she wanted out. Known she would get a job eventually. But he’d assumed she would, you know, tell him when she accepted one.
Not just poof out of his life like a fucking genie in a bottle.
He was okay with her leaving. He wasn’t okay with being so unimportant to her that she could accept a job and call a mover without telling him about it. Rationally, he knew she would probably tell him eventually, but irrationally, he didn’t give a flying fuck.
She’d known about this for two weeks, and she hadn’t said a damn word? Why not? Did she think he would try to stop her? Did she think he would try to convince her to stay with him?
He wouldn’t. He’d sworn not to.
Of course, he’d also sworn not to fall for her, and he’d broken that promise. She didn’t know that, though. Now she never would, because if she could accept a job and leave without telling him, then he could damn well take any feelings he had for her to the grave with him.
By the time the elevator doors opened, he was trembling with rage and an unknown emotion he had no interest in examining further. One that made it hard to breathe, caused his throat to close up, and made the room spin. Something that felt a hell of a lot like what people called heartbreak. Instead of naming that emotion, he clung to the anger he felt.
In the past, he would deal with his frustration by getting drunk alone in a bar, and banging some chick he wouldn’t remember come morning. He didn’t want to bang a chick, though, so he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed quickly.
Within two rings, his brother answered. “Eric? What’s up?”
He tightened his grip on his iPhone, walking across the lobby with the bottle of champagne he’d bought for Shelby still in his hands. “I need you, Wyatt. Are you home?”
“I can be at Mom and Dad’s in twenty. Why? What’s wrong?”
Eric walked to his car, flexing his jaw as he frowned up at the darkening sky. “I fell in love.”
“Well, what the hell did you go and do that for?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “See you in twenty?”
“I’ll be there.”
They hung up, and he slid into the driver’s side. As he turned his car on, he glanced up at his building and stared at the first window on his floor. She had her curtains drawn, but he knew it was hers. He was supposed to be up there, in her place, holding her in his arms. Instead, he was leaving, only seconds after he’d told himself he wasn’t a runner, but a fighter.
He wasn’t running. He was just taking a step back so he could think. When—if—he confronted her, it had to be done right. He couldn’t fuck it all up.
Then again, who said there was anything to fuck up in the first place? He shifted into gear, pulled out onto the road, and drove away without looking back.
If it was so easy for her, it could be just as damn easy for him.
Chapter Eighteen
Shelby paced in front of her cracked door, biting her nail and checking the clock for the millionth time. Midnight. Eric was supposed to be done working and at her place by eight. Her calls had gone unanswered, and her texts had gone unread, and she had no idea what the heck was going on. It wasn’t a good feeling. The pit of her stomach was in knots, and she couldn’t get a full breath no matter how hard she tried.
She wasn’t much for worrying needlessly, or coming up with what if scenarios in her head, but what if something had happened to him? She couldn’t think of another reason for him not to show up, and for him not to answer her texts. After the mover had come and given her a quote, she’d gotten cold feet and had called them to tell them to hold off on filing the paperwork until tomorrow morning. It was about two glasses into a bottle of wine that she realized why:
