“Oh. I’m so sorry.” He’d been working months on it. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Tonight’s incident aside, I know that must have been rough.” My anger gave way as I looked into his devastated eyes. He put everything into his job, but sometimes everything isn’t enough.
His hands released my shirt and moved to my arms. He tugged gently to make me put them down so he could hold my hands. “You know I never would have left you sitting there if I could have avoided it.”
“I know how hard you worked on that project.”
“That just makes Paris more important. I can’t f**k up again.”
“You didn’t mess up.”
“Yes, I did. I lost this.”
I sighed. “I’m too tired and drunk to do this right now.”
“I have something for you.” He pulled a small box from his pocket.
I opened it. “Wow. They’re beautiful.” The diamond earrings were way over the top, but that was something else I wasn’t up for arguing about.
“Their each half a carat.”
“Thank you.” I hugged him, deciding to hold off on giving him the engraved journal I’d bought him. I figured it was time for him to move on from spiral notebooks.
He took my hand. “No. Thank you. Thank you for putting up with me for the last three months.”
“It’s late. Do you want to stay here?”
He didn’t look like he had the energy to drive.
“Can I?”
“Do you want to sleep on the couch or squeeze into my twin bed with me?”
He didn’t hesitate with his answer. “Your bed.”
“Okay.” I led him into my room. I pulled back the covers, displacing some clothes I’d left on top earlier. I slipped in. I was already in my favorite sweats.
He undressed down to his underwear and got in next to me.
Lying there with him, my mind raced. I knew it was time to make a decision, and it wasn’t going to be an easy one to make.
Chapter Twenty-One
I put off the conversation with Colin as long as I could. I loved the time we spent together, and I knew my answer would change everything. Colin only got busier after the anniversary dinner debacle. He tried to make time for me, but he couldn’t. We barely ever had sex anymore, and I’m not even sure he noticed. Still, he’d randomly text me and email me pictures of Paris, and tell me how excited he was for us to have time away—I’d never said yes, but he’d taken my non-answer to mean exactly that. To be fair, I wasn’t making a huge effort myself. I’d checked out after he stood me up. I was tired of always taking the backseat to his job. I was tired of rejection, and I wanted someone who found me important enough to put me first. As Lyle sang in one of his songs, A girl needs to know there’s no one else in the world but her.
“I need to talk to you.” The words slipped from my mouth as soon as he opened his front door. I pushed past him, wanting as little physical contact as possible. A caress or a kiss would only make it harder.
“About?” His eyes twinkled. He had no idea what was coming, and that made it so much worse. It was eleven o’clock at night, and I was pretty sure he’d just gotten home.
“The trip.”
“What about it?” He displayed the first hint of nerves.
“I’m not coming.” My hand formed a fist. I was so tense and nervous I wanted to be sick.
“What?” He rested a hand on the wall. “Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“Sure you can. We’ve been over this. It won’t cost you anything.”
I looked down, finding it impossible to meet his eye. “I need to stay here.”
“Why? What the hell is so important that you have to stay?” Anger filled his voice. I’m sure his exhaustion had something to do with it.
“Work, my friends, me.”
“You? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t want me for who I really am, Colin. You have this idealized version of me, but it’s not me.”
“How can you even say that? Of course I know the real you.”
“You don’t. I can tell by the way you tell your friends that bartending is only until I find something better. You don’t know me.”
“I know you aren’t going to spend your whole life behind a bar.”
“But I’m also not jumping up and down to apply for jobs either.”
“So? What does that have to do with me not knowing you? I don’t get it.”
“You think I’m something I’m not. You’ve been so busy working that you haven’t taken the time to figure out who I really am.”
“Oh. So this is my fault? I’m sorry that I work for a living. I’m sorry that I care about our future.”
“Our future? We’ve been dating a few months, Colin. My future has nothing to do with yours.”
His mouth fell open. “You say that I haven’t taken the time to really get to know you? Well, do you even know yourself? Who are you, Maddy?” The anger in his voice scared me, but it was better than hearing hurt.
“No, but that’s the whole point.”
“The whole point?”
“If I don’t know who I am, how can I commit to you?”
He groaned. “It’s just three months. I don’t want to spend three months apart. Do you really want to?”
“I’m not asking you to do long distance. You’re free to date or do whatever you want.”
“So this is about more than the trip? You’re trying to break up with me?” His anger wavered. He was scared.
I nodded, knowing that if I spoke I’d probably start crying.
“Why? I don’t get it. You can’t be with me because you’re trying to find yourself? Or wait. Sorry, that was only one attempt at bullshitting an excuse. The first one was that I don’t really know you. And let’s not forget that I work too much. What other crap do you have waiting for me? Where the hell is this all coming from?”
“You can’t be surprised. We’ve barely seen each other for weeks.”
“I had to get things tied up before we left. I want to have time for you in Paris.”
“Oh, because magically I’ll come first there?”
“What do you want from me, Maddy? What am I supposed to say right now to fix things? Should I quit my job? Is that what it’s going to take? Because I’ll do it. I’d quit this second if it meant I wouldn’t lose you.”