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I back up another step and bump against a bookshelf. It’s lined with dusty magazines and three-ring binders and a fat dictionary I can’t imagine anyone in this day and age using for anything other than killing spiders.
“You kissed me on Tuesday,” I remind him, my voice less firm than I’d like. “I thought—”
“So?”
“So?” I repeat.
“Yeah. So? You were the one swearing we’d never kiss. I always knew it would happen.”
“You initiated it!”
“Again: So?”
“So...so...why are you acting like you hate me? Why did you avoid me this week?”
“I wasn’t avoiding you, Kitty Cat,” he says with a mocking smile that suggests I’m overreacting. “I had shit to do. I have a life that involves more than your silly column and a forgettable kiss at your apartment.”
Embarrassment warms my neck. Not because he downplayed the kiss we shared or that he was genuinely attracted to me in that moment. I was there. That wasn’t a forgettable kiss. But it’s the “silly column” part that cuts deep.
I work hard. I spend my life hunched over a laptop, my wrists aching and fingers stiff from typing for hours upon hours. I don’t do it because it’s “silly.” I may have categorized this assignment as a puff piece early on, but I’m committed to an outcome that is nothing short of amazing.
“My column isn’t silly.” I hear my own hurt feelings in every syllable. Evidently, so does Barrett. His eyebrows soften in sympathy.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” He glances at the ceiling, then back at me. “I worked more on the column. Took your advice.”
“Mia said it was really good.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s better than okay—it has to be. It was better than okay when I read it. I may have been too harsh. I should’ve—”
“Did you sleep with North?”
“What?” I scrunch my face, legitimately confused.
“You heard me.”
“We dated for six months. Of course I slept—”
“On Tuesday night,” Barrett interrupts, impatient. “Did you sleep with him on Tuesday night? I didn’t see him leave.”
“You waited for him to leave?”
“For a while.” He won’t look at me.
“Why?” Confusion is my only ally.
“Because. Because.” His eyebrows meet over his nose.
Oh, hell no. He’s not allowed to clam up. He dragged me in here, he can damn well confess what’s rankling him.
“Tell me why you waited for North to leave.” I grab his forearms and force him to meet my eyes. Fox licks his lips. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. Finally, he speaks.
“When he walked out of there with his third-generation nose in the air, I planned on telling him to leave you alone or he’d have to deal with me,” Barrett says, his teeth bared.
“Why do you care? Especially after some stupid little smooch that was ‘forgettable.’” I let go of him to air-quote the word and then wait for him to explain.
He does.
