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He laughed and leaned back, tucking an arm behind his head and regarding me thoughtfully. “You want to talk about that?” he asked and jerked his chin towards me.
Knowing he was talking about my eye and cut lip, I shook my head. As much as I wanted to tell Knox what happened I just couldn’t. Being home again was new and seeing him after so long was very new. I couldn’t just drop an “I have a stalker” bomb on him.
“Fine. I’ll just assume you got mugged in Central Park.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s what I’ll tell people if they ask.”
“It’s better than admitting you have a stalker.”
I froze, my whole body stiffening and my breath halting in my throat. What? How did he know? Who did he talk to? The irrational part of my brain took over and I jumped to conclusions at the same time I jumped to my feet, fear and paranoia swamping me.
“Whoa,” he stood and blocked my path. “Easy.”
The way he was speaking to me made me feel like an untrained horse and I glared at him. “What do you know about it, huh? Who did you talk to? Did someone come here looking for me?” My voice rose with every word I spoke.
Knox vehemently shook his head and gave me a sympathetic, pleading look. “Abbs, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out and I shouldn’t have sprung that on you. I talked to Simone and she told me a little bit of what happened. I only asked because I wanted to see if you’d tell me the truth.”
Anger suddenly trumped fear. “I come to visit you- against my better judgment, by the way- and you decide you’re going to test my honesty? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Hey, hey,” he stepped towards me. “I’m sorry. It was a dick move, it really was.”
I looked at him, my eyes narrowed. He was standing close enough to me that I could smell him and it was clouding my judgment. Clean cotton and sweat. How that was a good combination was beyond me but it was intoxicating. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said defensively, my guard going up. “You don’t know what happened to me.”
“But I’d like to,” he shot back without hesitation. If there was one thing that I both loved and loathed about Knox it was that he always had something to say.
Right now it was safe to say I loathed that quality.
“You’re right. I don’t know what happened to you in New York and I don’t know what your life has been like for the last five years. I don’t know a damn thing about you anymore, Abbs. But I’d like to. If you want to talk about it then I… I want to listen. I want to hear what you have to say.”
I swallowed the sudden lump of emotion that clogged my throat. Knox, someone who constantly struggled with expressing his feelings, wanted me to open up to him and it killed me that I couldn’t. He never asked for things like that, for heavy conversations. I could probably count on one hand the times we ever had deep conversations; the first time I told him I loved him, when I lost my virginity to him, when his grandfather died and when my brothers had a huge blowout with my dad the night before my eighteenth birthday. He was better with talking about things that were light and breezy, but the way he was looking at me now wasn’t light or breezy at all.
“I’m not ready,” I whispered.
“Okay,” Knox responded just as quietly. He reached out and his fingers traced the bruise around my eye. The feather-light touch had me weak in the knees and I foug
ht the urge to lean into him, just for a minute. Just one minute of leaning up against someone instead of having to stand on my own, alone, all the time. But I couldn’t. I cast my eyes down, and Knox let out a sigh, so soft I barely noticed it.
“Let me drive you home.”
Chapter 5
Yoga was the worst.
I hated yoga.
With a passion.
But still, a week after my interaction with Knox, I found myself sitting there practicing my breathing while Simone tried to get me to talk to her. After multiple angry texts about me accusing her of not understanding boundaries and her accusing me of turning a blind eye to the fact that I was “still madly in love with Knox,” I agreed not to cancel our yoga session because she wanted to explain herself.
“Please,” she said into the phone the morning of our yoga session.
“I don’t even like yoga,” I grumbled in return.
Her light, airy laugh was my only response.
“Seriously, Simone,” I said with the phone pressed between my shoulder and my ear as I leaned over to tie my shoes. I was still angry at the fact that she told Knox about what happened, but I knew I’d end up going to yoga class anyway. I didn’t have it in me to bail on anyone, even when I was pissed off.
“I’m sorry, Abby. I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear. Just meet me there and I’ll explain myself.”
