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Pulling in a deep breath, I made peace with knowing I was pushing him away and out of my life. “I want a husband,” I said. “I want to have a house. I want to have kids. I want to make my own fucking money without relying on someone else to support me. I want a normal life, and this—everything we’re doing—isn’t normal.”
He shrugged flamboyantly, using his entire body. “Well, I was kinda thinking it was better thanmynormal, but okay. Whatever you say.”
“Oh Jesus Christ, Dylan,” I groaned, rolling my eyes away from the pain and toward incredulity. “Come on. I go weeks without hearing from you. I only see you when you need to write another song. I mean …” I laughed, injecting a bitterness I hadn’t been sure I was capable of feeling in regard to him. “If you want to talk about using someone, you should look in the fucking mirror.”
Dylan opened his mouth to reply and then quickly shut it again. He hung his head before nodding softly. “I think I should take you home now,” he finally said, hammering the final nail into my heart.
But I didn’t talk him out of it.
“Okay,” I replied as the wind blew through the courtyard, cold and ripping through my dress and to my bones.
Yet nothing stung quite as much as the silent car ride home.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lennon
“So, I went out to dinner last night with the producer, Janet Malkovich, and the author of the Breckenridge books—”
“Wait. You went out to dinner with B. Davis?” I interrupted, lowering the pair of pants I was folding to stare wide-eyed at the phone.
“Yeah, and Jackson Stark went too.”
“But you went to dinner withtheB. Davis.” I clapped a hand against my forehead, hardly believing my bestest friend in the entire world could be that lucky while I was over here, excited about my mom buying the good fabric softener and not the cheap store-brand stuff.
“Yes, I went out withtheB. Davis,” she groaned, and I knew she was rolling her eyes. “And I will have you know that he’s very, very hot—”
“Do you ever notice anything about a man other than his appearance?” I asked in a tone that was maybe a little too dry and snarky.
“As if there’s anything else to notice,” she replied sarcastically, then laughed at her own failed attempt at a joke.
“Then, you know what? You can’t complain about men wanting you for nothing but sex either, if that’s all you can think about too,” I replied, equally as dry, but not at all sarcastic.
Tarryn scoffed. “Whoa, Lennon, what the hell crawled up your ass?”
The half-folded pair of yoga pants was thrown onto the bed as I yelled, “I am just so freakin' tired of someone's worth being measured by how likely you are to sleep with them. And I'm not just talking about you. I'm talking about anyone. It's fucking bullshit, and I'm sick of it.”
The past two days since I'd last seen or heard from Dylan had been rough … to put it lightly.
Tarryn didn't reply right away. She allowed the words I had said to simmer, hanging in the air between our two lines. I rolled my eyes to the ceiling fan, biting my lip and releasing my anger with every heavy breath before I couldn't stand the silence anymore.
“I don't think I'm going to be seeing Dylan again,” I finally said. The moment the words were uttered aloud, the more the reality of it smacked against my heart. I sucked in a quavering breath as my eyes teared up, unable to believe I’d thrown it all away wittingly.
Tarryn sighed audibly. “I knew something was up when you didn't text me the other night,” she admitted. “Okay, baby. Tell me what happened.”
In too much detail, I reiterated everything that had happened at the wedding. How good things were initially. The admissions and the conversation with Cassie. The panic attack and, finally, the confession that broke it all apart.
Tarryn listened intently, knowing better than to interrupt. Then, when I was finished, she said, “God, that must have been an awkward ride home …”
“You have no idea,” I muttered, scraping my teeth along my bottom lip and praying I could keep the tears at bay.
“So, what happened when he brought you home?”
Swallowing, I shook my head and sat down beside Ernest on the bed. “Nothing,” I replied, scratching him absentmindedly behind the ears.
“Nothing?” she repeated, incredulous.
“Absolutely nothing. We didn't say a word on our way to the house, and I kinda hoped he'd say something before I got out of the car, but nope.”
