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He nodded and returned to the coffee maker.
“Can you make me one?” I asked, grabbing the creamer from the little basket on the coffee bar.
“Sure.” He traded cups and passed the first one to me.
“Thanks,” I muttered, adding a couple of the creamers. “It’s not easier. That was the wrong word to use. I felt like a burden to you. I didn’t want to be the friend you have to take care of all the time.” I wanted to explain before the wound festered. I didn’t want him harboring those ideas.
“Did you ever fucking ask? Maybe I enjoyed being the one who fucking takes care of you.” He said it and didn’t look at me, keeping his attention on the coffeemaker.
“No, I didn’t even consider that a possibility.” I hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry.”
He nodded, but that was all the acknowledgement of the apology I got. He finally turned around to lean against the counter with his black coffee in hand. “I’ve never done anything to suggest you’re a burden. I’ve never complained. I’ve never told you no. I’ve never done a single fucking thing but be there with you, and you just stopped.”
“I did.” I wouldn’t argue or justify it. “You’re right.”
He stared into his coffee and then took a sip. “Does he do a better job than I do?”
“What?”
“Is your brother more comforting? If he is, don’t come back because you feel bad.” He kept his eyes downcast on his mug, and I hated myself for ever making him think those things.
“Look at me.”
He didn’t.
“Royal,” I insisted. “Please look at me.”
He finally lifted his gaze. “What?”
“He’s not more comforting.”
“Then it doesn’t make sense to me why you’d switch like you did.” He let out a held breath. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll get over it.”
“Because I don’t want to fuck him while sleeping next to him, and sleeping next to you constantly just made me feel like shit for wanting someone who would never want me.” I let it out like an exhale as fast as I could, my cheeks heating.
He narrowed his eyes. “Is that what the skirts were about?”
I shook my head before he finished speaking. “No. I did that for me. Well, at first it was for me—after I saw your reaction, I might have played into it. But I didn’t actually think...”
“You didn’t actually think what? To what end was it then?”
“It pissed me off you were avoiding me, so I was being a dick. I didn’t think you’d really fuck me.” I squirmed, getting even more red.
He smirked into his coffee.
“What?” I demanded.
“Proved you wrong there.”
TWENTY-ONE
Aspen
We left the bungalow, both needing breakfast after all the energy we’d expended over the last twelve hours.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. There was a part of me still waiting for the other shoe to drop, like he hadn’t just ended an argument by fucking my throat.
“Good.” He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. “So what does that make the rest of this trip if we get along now? Should we tell Levi and go home?” Royal picked at his Froot Loops, only eating the purple and green ones.
