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“I wasn’t expecting to run into you…caught me off guard. I didn’t mean to be such an ass.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
He slid his hands into his pockets and tilted his head slightly as he looked at me. “I guess I need more time to get over this. It was unexpected, and I was blindsided. The conversation was short and over the phone—”
“You have every right to be upset, Antonio. You don’t need to explain anything to me.”
He sighed again. “I’ve never wanted a woman so much. And then when I find one I really want…I can’t have her.”
His intense gaze made me uncomfortable, like listening to it was a betrayal to Bones. I lowered my gaze, unable to look him in the eye.
“I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s true. I’ve always been honest with you.”
Still unsure what to say, I said nothing.
He continued to stand there, like the conversation wasn’t over. “Are you going to keep the gallery?”
I nodded.
“Are you going to keep living there too?”
“Not forever, but for the time being.” I lifted my head, looking at him now that the awkward part of the conversation was over.
He clenched his jaw before he asked his next question. “Is he here with you?”
“Yes.”
He gave a slight nod, accepting the answer, but only barely. “That’s why you don’t want the painting anymore…because of him.”
“It makes him uncomfortable.” That wasn’t an accurate description of the way Bones felt. He’d flipped out, told me off, and then stormed out. I couldn’t remember a time when Bones walked out on me. This was the first time, our first real fight. “And I understand why. He told me to throw it away…but I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to. It’s too beautiful of a piece…I’m not just saying that.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “And thank you.”
Now that he was being civil, I remembered why I liked him in the first place. He was kind and easy to talk to.
“Do you still have feelings for me?” he asked, a hint of hope in his voice.
I didn’t want to tell him the blunt truth, not when it would crush him. He shouldn’t have asked the question at all. “It doesn’t matter. He’s the man I want to spend my life with. I was honest about that in the beginning, that he was the love of my life. The only reason I wasn’t with him was because I couldn’t be with him. But now I can. Please don’t waste another moment hoping I’ll change my mind. I can live without you…I can’t live without him.” I didn’t want to hurt Antonio even more, but he needed a firm reason to move on. He needed a reason to forget about me, to dislike me.
He didn’t react at all. His eyes remained on mine, unblinking. “He’s a lucky man.”
“Thank you…”
“Maybe we can be friends.”
Bones would never allow that, not after the way he reacted to the painting. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll always say hello when I see you. I’ll never ignore you. I’ll ask how your artwork is going…you can ask about mine. But no, I don’t think we can be friends.”
If he was hurt, he hid the expression deep down inside. “I guess that makes sense.”
“You’re a wonderful man, Antonio. You’re handsome, successful, interesting, and kind…you can have any woman you want. Someone just as special is out there. When you find her, you’ll forget about me. When you find someone you love the way I love Griffin…you won’t even remember my name. And that’s a promise.”
Bones didn’t come back to the apartment until the late afternoon.
I unpacked all our things and cleaned up the place. Antonio had never come inside my apartment, so I didn’t have to hide any other trace of him. I was eager for Bones to come home, but I was also dreading it at the same time. Knowing him, he would be just as furious as when he left.
I covered the nail on the wall with a new painting, one I’d painted after he left that no one had bought. It was an image of him in my bed, the sheets around his waist. His face wasn’t visible, but his hard body and tattoos were detailed. I didn’t remember every single tattoo he had, but I’d remembered a lot of them. Maybe when he saw that, he would remember that Antonio didn’t matter…that he never compared.
He finally walked inside after three in the afternoon, and like I expected, he looked just as pissed as when he left. He wore a permanent scowl of displeasure, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes two balls of burning fire. All the individual muscles in his arms were tight because he was flexing his entire body at one time.
His gaze landed on me first, still potently hostile. It seemed like he’d walked out five minutes ago, not five hours ago. He must have walked around Florence with that expression, terrifying everyone he passed on the sidewalk. People probably crossed to the other side of the road just to avoid him.
