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What was there to talk about? He was married. Which made me a cheap home wrecker and him a philandering asshole.
With a bit too much gusto, I deleted the message and put my phone away, ignoring the continued buzzing. He could try all he wanted. I wasn’t interested anymore.
* * *
It tookme nearly two hours to get home. Too absorbed in the maze of my thoughts to notice the automated announcements of train stops, I stared vacantly all the way to the end of the line, where I had to wait another thirty minutes until the train went back to Harvard Square. I trudged the last ten-minute walk to my apartment through another horrid downpour, but I couldn’t feel the rain. Brandon’s simple admission echoed through my head as numbed shock replaced my anger. A deep sadness filtered through it all.
By the time I approached my building, my suit jacket was saturated and dripping, and my hair was plastered to my forehead and neck. The water in my pumps made them squish with each step. I noticed none of it. It wasn’t until I pulled my keys from my waterlogged purse that Brandon’s familiar voice rang out.
“Where the hell have you been?”
I looked up. He stood against the glass doors of the building, arms crossed in front of his expansive chest, and a frown fixed on his face. Waiting for me. Always waiting for me.
He had changed—while he still wore jeans and his Red Sox cap, he had replaced his t-shirt with a fleece and raincoat, his running shoes with waterproof boots. He had come prepared to wait in the wet, despite his Mercedes at the curb.
He looked cold. And really, irritatingly fuckable. But his martyrdom didn’t impress me—it felt manipulative. My numbness disappeared, replaced again with anger.
“I told you to leave me alone,” I said in a low voice. “I need some space, Brandon.”
“I give you space, Red, I’ll never hear from you again,” he said, pushing off the door. “That’s not gonna cut it for me.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you don’t have a choice,” I said. “You need to stop chasing me.”
I feigned right and tried to dodge around him to the left, but Brandon moved with me, forcing me to look at him in the eye.
“I’llneverstop chasing you,” he said fervently. “You can believe that.”
“You sound like a stalker!” I protested.
“I sound like a man in love!” he roared.
I stepped back warily.
“Don’t look at me as if last night didn’t happen, Skylar,” Brandon warned me. “Or this morning, for that matter. I’m fucking crazy about you, and you’re crazy about me too. From the goddamn second I found you sitting in my house, I’ve been acting like a complete lunatic, and I can’t do a thing to stop it! You’ve got me wrapped around your little finger. But you know what? I know you feel it too!”
“So what if I do!” I burst out, my purse dropping on the wet ground with a splat as my arms flung out to the sides. My ponytail came loose, and wet snakes of copper-colored hair flew into my face. I pushed them away furiously. “You’re fuckingmarried! You were unavailable, yet you pursued me, over and over again, broke down every barrier I had, mentally and physically. Do you know what that makes me, Brandon?”
“Don’t say it…” he warned, shifting back and forth and tugging anxiously on the bill of his cap.
“It makes me the other woman,” I said flatly. “But since we hardly know each other, and you insist on throwing money at me all the time, really it just makes me your whore.”
“Goddamn it, I said don’t say it!” he bellowed, yanking the cap off and throwing it onto the sidewalk.
Several students peered curiously from the windows above us. I suddenly wanted to get into my apartment as soon as I could.
“Where are you going?” Brandon asked sharply as I picked my wet bag up off the pavement and turned to the door. “We’re not finished here. Do you want me screaming up at the window like a Tennessee Williams character? Because don’t think I won’t go all Marlon Brando on you, Red.”
“Don’tcall methat!” I shrieked as I whirled back around.
I gulped in a breath, surprised by the intensity of my response. For some reason, the nickname, under these circumstances, caused almost as much pain as everything else. I glanced at the heads still watching from the windows; most of them popped back inside, but I knew they were still listening.
“Have it your way,” I said through gritted teeth. “If we’re going to scream at each other, we’re going to do it where my classmates can’t stare at us. And where I can get some dry clothes. Come on.”
Brandon bent down to retrieve his now-soaked cap. “Lead the way.”
Thirty-Eight
With heavy, wet feet that scraped the thin, battered carpets of the building, Brandon followed me into the empty apartment. Jane was thankfully studying at the library and would be for the rest of the day. I shut the door and flipped on the lights, carefully avoiding Brandon’s gaze as I removed my soaking coat and shoes.
