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“Nothing,” I answer coldly, getting up to pull my pants back on.
Her eyes fall closed for a second, but before she can say anything about me shutting her out again, her phone vibrates on the coffee table. She gets up and walks over to it, stark naked, with no shame at all. She doesn’t even care about the cum that drips down her leg.
“Hey Ash,” she says as she answers the call. “Uh…yeah. Give me like ten minutes, okay? No problem. Bye.”
“She has great timing,” I muse, but the sharp look she shoots my way suggests I’ve overstepped.
Grabbing her clothes, she goes into the bathroom to cleaning herself up, and then she sets her computer up in the kitchen. I should stay in the living room. Play video games or watch a damn movie. There’s no reason I should sit at the island.
Except…it’s closer to her.
So, that’s exactly where I go.
I NEVER USED TOconsider myself a bitter person. I wasn’t exactly the happiest, but I don’t think I was ever bitter. But sitting here, pretending to scroll through my phone as I not-so-subtly watch Laiken work, I can’t help but feel that way.
Don’t get me wrong, I was honest when I told her that I’m proud of her. I am. I know how much she wanted this, and the fact that she made it happen is incredible. I never doubted that she would do it. I’ve seen some of the things she’s written, and she’s really talented.
But I wasn’t a part of it.
She left, and my life fell apart without her. But Laiken? She didn’t just survive without me. She fucking thrived.
Maybe karma agrees with her. Maybe she was being rewarded for doing theright thingby protecting me, even though I never asked her to. That very well could be the case.
But there’s also the possibility that I was always just holding her back.
She finishes up and closes her computer, finally looking at me for the first time in the last two hours. “Are you just going to stare at me, or do you actually want to talk?”
“Don’t know what there is to talk about,” I answer simply.
Her eyes roll. “Well, you could start with why you’ve been watching me this whole time with a frown on your face. You’re going to get wrinkles.”
I shrug, tearing my eyes away from her and focusing on my phone. “There are worse things than wrinkles.”
She walks around the side of the island until she’s standing in front of me, leaning against the counter. “Or you could tell me what you think about every time you retreat into yourself after we have sex.”
The first one. Definitely the fucking first one.
“You know, they say wrinkles show that you laughed a lot during your life,” I tell her.
Some useless information I picked up from some trivia night Cam and Mali dragged me to once. I remember because Mali said I had nothing to worry about and my face would stay wrinkle free.
I flipped her off.
“Hayes,” Laiken sighs. She carefully takes my phone out of my hand and puts it down. “Talk to me. Please.”
My gaze meets hers, and I hate the way she’s looking at me. Fragile is not a word anyone would ever use to describe me, but with her, I feel like I could shatter at any moment. After she left, I tried to put myself back together, but it was always an impossible task.
So, I faked it.
I forced a smile on my face in front of everyone who mattered, and I drank with my friends, pretending I was having a good time. But with her standing here now, staring back at me like she can see right into my soul, I know it was all a damn lie.
I’m not okay.
There hasn’t been a point since she left that I was.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“What you’re thinking,” she suggests. “How you’re feeling.”
