Page 84 of Scoring Eden

I must have misinterpreted what he meant by that. Because now, it seems that he can’t look at me at all.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I whisper, too uncertain to put any real volume into my voice.

“Huh?” His eyes flick to me for just a beat before whipping back to the road.

“I asked if you’re okay.”

The tendons in his wrist strain from the force of his grip on the wheel. He clears his throat, rubs his chest again, squints his eyes like he’s in pain. “I told you I’m fine.”

Rejection claws at my insides, a feral cat slashing at my heart with talons as sharp as kitchen knives. It was an understatement to say I must have misinterpreted his meaning. I did so much more than that. I allowed his words to bloom something in my heart that I knew from the beginning had no place growing there.

Hope.

That our relationship could be more than what we’re pretending it is. That his soft touches, and burning kisses, and little kindnesses that I’ve never been shown before could become more than a pretty lie for the benefit of cameras and my ex-husband. Hope that those things could just be for us.

That, one day, maybe…it could all be real.

For a moment, I thought I had that. I felt his desperation in every lick of his tongue against mine, in the way that he held me, cradled my face, and looked at me like he’d die if I stopped touching him. Guess I was just projecting, because had any of that been true, then he wouldn’t have gone so cold the moment it was over.

He got what he wanted from me, and that’s the end of that.

God, I’m an idiot. A stupid, pathetic, naive idiot.

Tears sting at my eyes as I cross my legs on the white leather seats and stare out the window. It’s funny how the landscape appears to mirror my mood. The lush greens and blossoming trees of the suburban neighborhood morph into steel, glass, and industrialist brick work as we reenter the city, color bleeding out into gray.

It’s ten more minutes of unbearable silence before the car finally rolls into the underground parking garage at Alex’s complex. I’m out the door like a shot, hightailing it to the elevators without looking over my shoulder to see if he’s following behind.

I don’t know if I want him to leave me alone or chase after me. Not that the choice is mine to make, which is made pretty damn clear when I hear the screeching of tires as he drives back out of the garage.

I look back then, through glassy eyes, at the glaring red of his taillights as he drives away. I watch until the car peels right out of the building then stare aimlessly at the empty space it leaves behind. I stare for so long my vision begins to blur. Just staring and staring and staring at the vacant space where I wish he was standing but isn’t.

I do it as a form of punishment, I think. For allowing myself to believe, for just a moment, that a man like Alex Wolfe would ever want a woman like me.

TEXT THREAD BETWEEN ALEX AND EDEN

Alex: I won’t be home until late, but there’s lasagna in the fridge that I made earlier if you guys want to reheat it for dinner.

Eden: It’s fine. I can figure something out for Macon and me.

Alex: Eat the lasagna, Eden.

Eden: Are we okay?

Alex: 350 degrees for forty-five minutes.

Eden: I know how to reheat a lasagna, Alex. That’s not what I asked.

Alex: There’s salad and garlic bread in the fridge too.

TWENTY-THREE

LEO

“So, let me get this straight.” Roman pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “You tell her that you want her, fuck her on a washing machine, then you freak out and don’t speak to her for two days? Am I getting that right?”

“I didn’t fuck her. We just…” I trail off, realizing that clarifying the point doesn’t change anything. I am, in fact, still a piece of shit.

I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours doing everything in my power to avoid Eden. I head to the gym at five a.m. every morning for the sole purpose of being out of the apartment before she wakes up to take Macon to school, and I don’t come home from practice until after she’s asleep. It’s not even like I’m filling my time with anything. Last night, I sat in my car in the parking garage for three hours, scrolling on my phone.