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Am I okay? I want to ask incredulously. He just stomped all over the one, tiny little piece of self-confidence I’ve actually managed to hold on to and he wants to know if I’m okay? Is he serious? What am I even supposed to say to that?
I take a second, try to even out my ragged breathing so I don’t look and sound as deranged—as pathetic—as I obviously am. Letting Ash see how much he’s shaken me is so not going to happen. I mean, my self-esteem might be shot to hell but I still have my pride.
“I’m good,” I tell him with a little laugh and a totally unnecessary flip of my too-short hair, even as I pray for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.
“A little embarrassed that I didn’t realize just how desperate you were to get out of this trip. But good.” I still can’t look at him.
“Tansy, I’m sorry,” he says to my back. “That was a jerk move for me to pull—”
“No problem,” I answer in the most carefree voice I can manage, even as I glance frantically around for my purse. “Misunderstandings happen all the time.”
“That wasn’t a misunderstanding,” he tells me. “That was me being an ass.”
I can’t disagree with that, so I just keep my mouth shut. My purse. My purse. Where is my stupid—I spy it lying on the floor near the door and all but lunge for it. “I’ve got to go. It’s getting late and I have a …”
I try frantically to come up with an excuse, any excuse, but my mind is completely blank. Well, except for the humiliation of being told that I’m so unattractive, so … so unfuckable, that he couldn’t believe I’d take him seriously. For some reason, I can remember that all too well.
“Tansy.” He catches my arm, spins me around like I weigh nothing. “Please. Look at me.”
I don’t want to. I really don’t want to. But we’re facing each other now and it would be weird if I didn’t look at him. So I reach for the hard-rock persona I put on this morning one more time, and try to pretend the last ten minutes never happened.
Thank God for the blue hair and bitch boots.
“I’m looking at you,” I tell him with another careless toss of my head. “Now what?”
He shakes his head. “Now I apologize for being a total tool. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You already apologized.” I force a laugh and though it’s a little hard, at least it sounds genuine. I think. And if it doesn’t, I don’t want to know about it. “Besides, you didn’t hurt me. I just didn’t realize you were going to go all sensitive on me.”
“Sensitive?” He spits the word out like it’s a curse. Actually, from what I know about him, he’s infinitely more comfortable with curse words than he is with the one I just threw at him. Good. Why should I be the only one out of her comfort zone?
“Yeah, you know. All squeamish about a simple biological function.”
“Biological function?”
“Dude, you’re beginning to sound like a parrot.” I tap his mouth, which is still hanging open just a little bit. “It’s not the best look for you.”
“Not the best—” He breaks off, pressing his lips together so hard that they turn white.
“I need to get going,” I tell him, slinging my purse strap onto my shoulder. “I’ve got to go break a little kid’s heart before my date tonight.”
He lets go of me so fast I nearly stumble. I hadn’t realized how hard I’d been straining in the opposite direction until he’d actually let go of me.
“That’s a shitty thing to say, Tansy.”
“Maybe. But it’s even shittier to cancel on him now that he’s all excited about the trip.”
“I’m sorry about that.” He rubs the back of his neck in a gesture I’m beginning to recognize as a tell for his frustration level. “I really am. If I’d had any idea what Logan was planning, I never would have let it get this far.”
“But
it did get this far. And ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t really going to cut it when I try to explain the situation to Timmy.”
“Jesus.” He glares at me. “You really know how to twist the knife, don’t you?”
“Hey, I’m just being honest.”
“I was honest, too, you know. From the beginning. I told you what I could and couldn’t do.”
