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“Sounds familiar.” I can’t help my smile.
When he doesn’t reply, I know something’s definitely up. I feel shut out from a few hours ago. It’s barely daybreak. Swallowing, I look around the bedroom because the idea of him leaving me has me scrambling to my knees. He pulls a sweater over his head and peers down at me.
“Can I use your restroom to wash up?”
“You were just inside me in that restroom hours ago, what’s with the formalities?”
He half shrugs. “Just trying to be polite.”
“By all means, Mr. Courteous.”
He shuts the door, and I hear the water run. Dragging myself from my bed, I wince at the soreness between my legs as I pull on my sweater. He’s leaving. On Christmas Day? Not just leaving, he’s bailing. Why? He’s been in a somber mood since he saw me dance and I can’t understand it. Putting a K-cup in my Keurig, I feel my heart start to race as dread fills me.
I walk over to the bathroom and knock on the door.
“So, where exactly in the city was your fight?”
Silence.
“Was it around here? I sure wish you would have given me the heads-up. I would have loved to have seen it.”
“Sorry, next time.”
Tears surface as I fully rouse and realize what’s happening. “I think we both know there won’t be a next time.”
The water shuts off, and he opens the door wiping his hands on the towel hanging on the back of it. “Probably right.”
“Yeah, because this was, what? ‘I’m in town and let me see if I can turn Harper’s world upside down?’…to get back at me?”
“You know that’s not it.”
“Your dad doesn’t need you home. Not today. You asked me to spend Christmas with you, and you’re going to up and leave a day early? Why?”
He avoids my stare, pulling his wallet from the top of my dresser and tucks it in his jeans. “I just need to get back.”
“Bullshit.”
“I have a fight coming up.”
“I understand, but it’s not today.”
“I need to focus.”
“Lance, what d
id I do?”
“Nothing,” he says, searching the room for his boots.
“You show up after two years, sleep with me, and now you want to leave without so much as a discussion about it?”
“I have to go home and train. You have a show. What’s there to discuss?”
“How about the fact that your last fight was in Lubbock, not New York.”
He still won’t look at me. “I wanted to see you, Harper, is that such a crime?”
“You’re hiding. You refuse to talk about home. There’s more to it than that. And these two days have meant something. What we have—”
