“Agreed!” I nodded and looked at him. “It’s not fair,” I said softly.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Love hurts.”
“It does,” he agreed.
“Then why the hell do we do it?” I asked.
“Because when it works, it’s the best feeling in the world.” He tried to force a small, brave smile and I smiled back at him. My heart felt like it was breaking. It was breaking for him, breaking for me and the general situation we both found ourselves in.
“I can tell you though, I’ll be much more careful going into a relationship again,” he said softly, staring forward.
“Me too,” I agreed and looked down at the green ribbon on my hand.
“I’m certainly not going to be telling anyone I love them again anytime soon.” Alex flopped down onto his back on the bed. “God, I feel like such an idiot. Everyone we know probably saw that.” At that, as if on cue, his phone started beeping and buzzing in his pocket.
“Turn the thing off,” I said. Sympathetic messages just made you feel worse. I flopped down onto my back too, and we lay next to each other looking up at the ceiling. The ceiling was high and a fan was going round and round in hypnotic circles and as I watched it, I felt my eyes getting heavier and heavier. It was making me feel somewhat sleepy. But I willed them open.
“You know, you haven’t bitched about bae yet, and this would be the perfect moment to do it.”
“That’s true.” Alex turned his head and looked at me. “What should I say?”
“I don’t know. What did she do that pissed you off?”
“Other than saying ‘No’ to my proposal, cheating on me and then getting engaged only two months later?”
“Yes. Other than that,” I replied. “What else?”
He sighed. It was long and loud and had an edge of defeat to it. “I’m not sure I can do this.”
“Sure you can. Where’s Aretha Franklin now?” I propped myself up on my elbow and looked down at him. His eyes came up to meet mine and I marveled at how the color of them seemed to change with the light or his mood. Now they were a sad, blue-gray color.
He shook his head. “I’m not that kind of guy. I can’t bitch about people, no matter what they’ve done to me.”
I studied him for a while before speaking. “You really are a nice guy, Alex. You don’t meet too many these days.”
“Apparently, that was part of the problem,” he said, turning and looking back up at the ceiling.
“What was?”
“I’m too nice. What did she say . . .? ‘Not passionate enough. Not enough fight in me. Too passive.’ And I thought the key to a successful relationship was not being a bastard.” He sighed again.
There was a small amount of truth to his statement, of course. But I wasn’t about to point that out now. A man that was too nice is often seen as boring. But so far, I certainly hadn’t experienced him like that. This Connie woman was clearly a mad cow. I almost turned and said that to him, but then stopped myself. He didn’t want to bitch about her, even after everything she’d done to him.
We both stared in silence at the ceiling; the soothing circles that the fan was cutting through the air were seriously making my eyes heavier and heavier and heavier . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The sound of children laughing and running woke me up. I opened my eyes, the sun was streaming through the gap in the curtains. It seemed late in the morning. I moved my body, but felt trapped under something heavy. I looked down to see what it was, and to my surprise, it was a big, solid hand.
I followed the hand to the muscular arm and turned my head to see whose body this appendage was attached to. I couldn’t see all the way behind me, but the head of salt and pepper hair made me realize that I’d fallen asleep on Alex’s bed, and now we were spooning!
I became aware of my legs suddenly, and then became aware that they were tangled up in his. God, this was rather awkward . . . but,mmmm, well, I must say, it did feel rather nice. I hadn’t felt the weight of a man’s body wrapped around mine in bed in a very, very, very long time. But although it felt nice now, I knew that the second Alex woke up the nice would become awkward.
So I tried to wiggle my way out of it. But he was too heavy. Still, I persisted. I continued my wiggle, trying to make my body as flat as possible so I could slither out. I made some progress and soon I was slipping lower and lower through his grip. If I carried on like this, I would make it to the bottom of the bed and I’d be able to crawl off. But as I’d managed to get halfway down, Alex moved. He readjusted himself and tightened his grip around me.
Great!My head was halfway down his chest now, and in this position, I had one of his knees poking into my shoulder blade. It was uncomfortable. I stuck my hand around the back of me and tried to push the knee away. But it was hard, and firmly stuck in place. I tried to swat it away a few times, but it just kept coming back.
