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None of these questions help my ego or my self-worth.
I follow her out of the office without a sound, and she doesn’t seem too eager to speak to me either. She’s always pretending like I don’t exist when we’re around others, so she’s right in her comfort zone.
The elevator ride is just as silent, and the stoic way she holds her head makes me want to press her to the wall and force her to look at me. I want to yell and spit fire, demand that she tells me exactly what is wrong with me that makes me so unworthy in her eyes.
But I don’t. I can’t. I don’t think I’ll like the answer.
I walk her to her car, clearing my throat when she opens the driver’s side door. “I want you to wait until I pull out. I’m going to follow you home. I’d suggest you ride with me, but I know you’re only going to argue. No stops. Straight to your apartment complex.”
When she finally looks up at me, I have to look away. With all of the bravado I built up in my head, it physically hurts to have her eyes on me.
Jesus, where did I go wrong?
I give her a curt nod before walking toward my truck. She’s emotionless, not interested, and despite what I want, what I think I need from her, I can’t make this woman want me. I can’t force her to feel something she doesn’t.
So, I’ll work. I’ll make sure she’s safe, and when Wren finally accepts that Parker and I are never going to happen, he’ll give up, get to the bottom of whatever is going on in her life, and then I can move on. Let’s just hope that happens soon.
Surprisingly, she does what I’ve asked her to do, driving straight home. She even waits outside of her car for me to pull up and park beside her.
The walk into the building is as silent as the walk from Deacon’s office was, and although the air in the elevator seems charged, I know it’s only one-sided. I guess I should be grateful she came to BBS for help instead of avoiding me altogether by hiring a different team that may not be as skilled as we are.
She seems distracted as she looks for her keys in her purse, pausing before she slides it into the lock.
“You can come in.” Her words are a whisper, but I choose not to read too much into it.
She may not want to be around me, but I doubt she’ll turn me down if I walked in with her and started pulling her clothes off. The woman likes sex. It’s intimacy she can’t stand.
I’ve discovered that I have no interest in one and not the other.
“I’m fine out here,” I say, still unable to meet her eyes as I clasp my hands together and face outward away from her door.
“Jude, I—”
I swallow thickly, not knowing what I should anticipate coming from her mouth, but she snaps her jaw closed, opens her door, and disappears inside.
Chapter 30
Parker
I left the state. I flew to Texas for the better part of a week to get some distance between the two of us. I struggled in St. Louis, knowing he was only a few miles away.
Right now, Jude Morris is right outside of my apartment. Ten or so steps away depending on where I am in my pacing path since I closed myself into my apartment.
My hands ache from wringing them together, and despite my exhaustion from another restless night’s sleep, I can’t seem to settle enough to even sit down, much less fall asleep.
I want to swing open the damn door and yell at him. I want to tell him he’s an idiot and that he has no right to make me get all tangled up inside, no right to confuse me and make me question all the ideals I’ve forced myself to believe since I was younger. How dare he make me want to consider something more than just some sexual fun before moving on. How dare he stay in my head, our nights together a constant reel behind my eyes, making it impossible to function like a normal person.
But it’s not the replaying of the nights we spent together that cause me pause. It’s the fact that my brain wants to focus on the tiny smiles he shot my way and the way his fingers trailed up my spine while we were trying to catch our breaths after sex. I’m in constant reminder of the way he washed my back in the shower and made sure I had the first cup of coffee when we were recharging.
I can’t focus on hating him when all I hear in my head is his laughter and feel his hands as they embraced me.
