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Opening my eyes, I can’t help but laugh at the confusion on his face. “Because I'm fuckingembarrassed, Jackson. I hate what they did and I hate that I'm a part of it. Pen can barely look her dad in the eye because of me. Her mom cries all the time because ofme.”
“Not because of you,” he argues. “It's his fault. His responsibility, not yours.”
“Stop.” I back up another step. This is exactly what I didn’t want. People telling me how I should feel, trying to rationalize and logicize. I don’t want to be rational, I don’t want to be logical, I want to be fuckingangry. “You don’t get it.”
“Really?” It’s Jackson’s turn to laugh. “I don’t get fucked up parents?Really?
“It’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not, but I still fucking get it, Luna.” He closes the distance between us so fast, I don’t get the chance to retreat. Nor do I manage to duck when his palms cup my face, no avoiding brown eyes holding mine hostage. “When are you gonna get it in your head that you don’t have to deal with shit alone, hm?”
“When are you gonna get it in your head that we’re broken up?”
His flinch is only a split second but in my head, it lasts an eternity.
An apology sits on my tongue but I can’t bring myself to say it. When his hands drop, I can’t bring myself to admit I miss them. And when he turns away, I can’t bring myself to tell him not to leave.
Luckily for me, he doesn’t.
I blink, confused, as he instead of hightailing it out the door like he should, he heads to the kitchen, one hand flicking the kettle on while the other retrieves two mugs. “What’re you doing?”
“Making tea.”
Making tea.
He’s making tea.
“You’re not leaving?”
“I promised you dinner.”
“And tea is dinner?” I quip, despite the fact that for many weeks post-Jackson, tea was the only dinner I could stomach.
Setting the grocery bag I forgot he had on the counter, he starts pulling out ingredients. “I’m making ramen.”
For fuck’s sake. I hate when he plays dirty like this, and cooking is fucking filthy.
Especially ramen. Once upon a time, he made it for me all the time. He was so appalled when he got me eating the two-minute stuff from a packet, he started stocking my fridge with the stuff.
Between him and Nick, we could go weeks without cooking.
Against my better judgment–or maybe in complete tune with it–I follow Jackson into the kitchen. I hoist myself onto the counter farthest from him, hands tucked beneath my thighs. “That’ll take a while.”
“Good,” is his firm reply. “Plenty of time to talk.”
Yet talk, he doesn’t do.
He just silently cooks and I don’t know if it’s a torturous punishment, payback for being a bitch, or if he’s giving me a second to breathe.
Actually, that’s a lie. I know.
I might be pretending I don’t because it’s just a little easier that way but I know.
Not until a mouthwatering smell floods my apartment, a broth bubbles on the stove, does he turn to me wearing that overly serious expression I used to poke fun at, once upon a time. “I'm sorry about the other day.”
It’s instant, the flush of heat that envelops me, an interesting, regrettable mixture of embarrassment and lust because that is exactly what thinking about The Incident incites. “We don't have to talk about this now.”
“That's why I came over,” he reminds me, abandoning his cooking and moving to stand in front of me. “I didn't mean for what I said to come out the way it did.“
