AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I shrugged. “Did you only have platonic feelings for her? Were you not attracted to her?”
The words almost got stuck in my throat as I asked them since I definitely wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about his attraction for Roxy. Not in detail, anyway. Obviously, I’d want him to be into whatever girl was lucky enough to be with him, but I didn’t need to hear all the nitty-gritty details.
He licked his lips, looking away. “I mean, sure, I was attracted to Roxy. She’s attractive.”
His words were stiff. Again, I didn’t think I wanted to hear more than that, but something occurred to me then. He’d never really talked to me about how hefeltabout Roxy. For the entire year-plus that they’d been together, every time we’d talked about her, he always used generalities.
She’s great.
We’re great.
It’s great.
Insert funny story about their witty banter.
Insert poignant moment that demonstrated they cared for each other.
But even though I racked my brain trying to come up with an example, I couldn’t think of a single, solitary time that I’d heard him express any kind of deep love for this woman. The kind of love that led to a proposal. The kind of can’t eat, can’t sleep, big deal kind of love. I imagined—envisioned or assumed, perhaps—he must have felt that way for her since they’d seemed like such a great couple. Plus, it was what I’d wanted for him.
I hadn’t particularlywantedhim to tell me those kinds of things, but suddenly it struck me as odd that he’d never offered it up on his own. “Paul,” I started, clearing my throat when my voice came out hoarse. “Paul, were you in love with Roxy?”
He blew air through his pursed lips. “What? Yeah. Sure.”
I tilted my head to the side. “You were?”
“Yes. Yeah. Of course. Why would I propose if I didn’t love her?”
Studying him in the dim light from the nearby streetlamps, I stepped closer. “I don’t know. Why would you?”
Paul leaned his head back against the wall and looked up. “I wouldn’t. Obviously.”
“Right. Because if you were about to propose to someone that you weren’t truly, madly, deeply in love with, you would have had a lot of reservations going into that, wouldn’t you?”
His face dipped back down so he could meet my eyes, and his were narrowed slightly. “What are you doing?”
“What?”
“Where is this going?”
I blinked at him. “I’m just trying to figure this whole thing out, Paul. It’s confusing.”
“You’re telling me.”
“I’m starting to think you didn’t really love Roxy, and now I’m having a hard time figuring out why you’d have me set up a freakingflash mob proposalfor her.”
He pushed off the wall and stepped forward in three long strides, stopping when we were inches apart. “Because,Shelby, you’re the one who inspired this whole thing with all of your talk about how flash mob proposals were an amazing way to show someone what they mean to you. It felt like a fool-proof plan. Who would say no to that? Except she did. And now I’m starring in a ridiculously embarrassing rejection video that’ll live on the Internet for the rest of time.”
“So you admit you thought you were going to be rejected? Why the heck would you propose in the first place?” My voice had risen beyond a reasonable level considering how close we were standing, but I didn’t care. This was ridiculous.
“Because I was supposed to,” he shot back. “It was the next step. It was the next step for me and Roxy. And if she was good enough with it to say yes, I figured we had a good enough thing, it would lead to a good enough marriage, and it would all be fine. Whatever.”
“Good enough? Do you hear yourself? That’s insane. Why would you want to settle for good enough?”
“Because Ican’t have what I want, Shelby,” he thundered. “Because good enough is my only option.”
And before I could even process that statement, he was gone; storming down the alley toward his car.
