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“Leo, carino,” I say, reaching into the backseat and shaking his knee.
“Don’t wake him, I’ll carry him in,” Rex says.
Damn him for being so sweet. For wanting to do exactly what a father should. “Wake up, we’re home.”
Leo rubs his eyes and yawns just as my mother opens the back door. “Abuela…”
Rex unbuckles his seatbelt; my hand shoots out, pressing against his ribs. I glare over my shoulder. Don’t move.
He breathes in sharply, fear turning his pupils into pinpricks, eyes almost a total sea of green.
Mama whispers to Leo in Spanish as she helps him out of the seat, then smiles at us. “You will stay for dinner,” she says.
I say nothing. Rex says nothing.
“Bueno, bueno,” she says.
I don’t know what I’m dreading more. This conversation with Rex or telling my mother about this conversation with Rex.
Once my mother shuts the door, I turn to Rex. All my fire and brimstone disappears the second I lay eyes on him.
I really believed we had forever.
What an idiot.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the tour,” Rex says.
I merely breathe.
“Isabella…” He puts his hand against the steering wheel. “Fuck, I…”
A coil of hurt tightens inside me.
Rex reaches for me. I don’t resist. I let him draw me into his arms and kiss my cheek. “I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry.”
I don’t have it in me to hold him back. Instead, with my hands bunched between us, I work the stupid rings off my finger and, once they’re off, I draw away. “Here.” I grab his wrist and shove them into his palm.
It takes him a moment to register what’s happening, but when he does, he looks at me like I’ve just kicked his dog. “Isabella –“
“This was fun,” I say and try to smile. “We did a good job, I think.”
He shakes his head. “No, listen to me –”
“You really went above and beyond. Pretending with me.”
Rex lowers his head, examining my face for any semblance of a joke. He won’t find it. “Come on, I wasn’t pretending.”
“No, I know. Not the whole time. But we pretended enough and now it’s time to stop,” I say with a firm nod. “Okay?”
Rex says nothing.
I reach for the car door but am stopped when he tugs on me again. Back into his arms, back into the fold of his mouth, this time a kiss to my lips, deep and trying to say something. Except it says nothing. Or at least doesn’t say enough.
I break away from him, tucking my chin to my shoulder. “Don’t make this more complicated.”
“Listen, I should have told you. I’m sorry I didn’t. But the tour doesn’t have to be the end of us okay?”
“It does, Rex.”
