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Carla made a fast exit out of the apartment. Muffy could only stare after her, dumbfounded. She waited until the door shut hard before her eyes tracked to Alex’s face.
He looked… he didn’t look great, and it should have made her feel good, but for some reason, her heart did that strange ache, twinge thing and her chest compressed in. It pissed her off, since she wanted to stay mad.
“I don’t even know what you did to find Carla’s number or how the heck you got in touch with her, but I have to say, it’s creepy. Stalkerish, even, but I guess if you have lots of money, you can get anything done.”
“Actually, she was the one who got in touch with me.”
“What?” Muffy’s mouth dropped open. Traitor! No wonder Carla hoofed it out of here as fast as she could.
“Yeah. She called me. Said I destroyed her best friend and I damn well better get my ass over here and fix it. I don’t want her coming after me. She’s pretty scary.” Alex mock shivered, but his lips wavered, trying not to turn into a smile.
“Geez. She should have left things alone.” Muffy muttered. She studied the carpet. “You can go. I don’t need you to say anything. I’ll tell Carla that you came, apologized, and that I accepted it and I can move on now. I’ll perk up and stop moping around. You sure as heck didn’t destroy anything about me, so don’t worry. You can leave now. No hard feelings.”
To her surprise, Alex didn’t leave. He let out a hard sigh that seemed to hover in the air between them before he moved across the room, far too lithe and strong and at home in the apartment. He dropped onto the couch beside her.
She watched him warily, like he was a viper about to strike. If he thought he was getting off easily, he had another thing coming. “You lied to me. You made up the entire thing. Put so much effort and time into being a shithead. For a bet. You took my trust and my… my energy and my- devotion- and- and everything else and you turned it into a joke.”
“That honestly wasn’t my intention. I never meant to hurt you.”
Anger crawled up Muffy’s throat and clenched up like a tight fist in her chest. “What did you think would happen?” she hissed. “That you’d just sit down and have this heart to heart with me and tell me that everything I knew about you was a lie and that you had some bet with your friend and that’s the whole reason we met and then you’d say sorry and I would just forgive you and give you a huge smile and move the hell on and be just fine?”
“No.” Alex shook his head and when his eyes flashed with unmistakable sorrow, Muffy knew there was a pretty good chance that he could actually do some lasting damage to her. It shouldn’t be possible, given that they hardly knew each other, but she felt broken inside. “No, that’s not what I think. I- I was going to tell you. I was going to- to try and explain. I know that it was wrong. I truly never meant to hurt you. I guess that I’ve met so many people and had so many shitty experiences that I never actually thought I’d meet someone and we’d- I don’t know. Have a good time.”
“A good time,” Muffy parroted flatly.
Alex ran his hand through his hair. He gripped it at the last second, like he was frustrated and wanted to tear it out. “I didn’t want you to find out like how you did. I know you have no sympathy for me, and I guess I deserve that. Dating, relationships, all of this- it isn’t easy. On anyone. When I was younger, I saw myself growing up and meeting someone and having a family one day, and then that just never worked out and I started to think I wasn’t built for it, so I let that shit go. I was pretty cynical when I took that bet, and honestly, it was more to prove to Jay that he was doing it all wrong, going out with the wrong kind of women. I already knew how that ends. I didn’t want to find anyone for myself. I wanted to prove to him that normal women can… I don’t know. The whole thing was screwed up. Given that I seriously didn’t believe it would ever work out, I have no idea… maybe I wanted to prove something to myself as well. Maybe that’s why I really took that bet. Because deep down, I didn’t want to believe that there wasn’t anyone out there for me. I always said I was fine by myself, but I was lonely. There was definitely something missing.”
