“Hey – she told me to go. I f**ked up, alright? She just didn’t listen to me when I tried to explain.”
“You two are both stubborn as shit and that’s your problem. Neither of you will listen to the other nor will you give in. You’ll just stand here on either side of the kitchen, mad and upset, until the other one leaves.”
“Thanks for your evaluation. Do I pay you now or later?”
“Sometimes I wonder why I bother helping you, you ass.”
I rest my arm over her shoulders and squeeze her. “I know, Iz. I’m sorry.”
She shrugs out of my hold. “It’s not me you need to apologize to. It’s the girl over there who’s wondering if she should just give up on you.”
Hit me where it hurts why don’t you, sis. Just punch me in the gut. It’d be easier to deal with.
Until I see her throw a shot back with Selena.
“Yeah.” I nod in her direction. “Really looks like she’s wondering. Looks like she already f**king has.”
“No,” Iz muses, leaning against the wall. “She’s given up on giving up. She thought you believed in her, now she thinks you don’t, so in her eyes she has nothing to give up for.”
“She should give up for herself,” Si interjects. “She should do it because if she doesn’t, she’s gonna go the same way as Cam.”
The truth hurts. Like a f**king bitch.
Iz looks round me. “You’re right, but that doesn’t mean she can see that.” Her voice gets quieter. “Kyle was her reason. He was her rock. He’s the only person that knew Cam the way she did, the only person that could understand even a fraction of her pain. We all know that, Si. We’re not stupid. None of us can do for her what he can.”
“Still here, y’know.” I watch as Roxy does yet another shot.
“And now…” Iz trails off, ignoring me. “Now, she thinks she’s lost him.”
A guy approaches her and she smiles at him. I chew the inside of my cheek as they start up a conversation, and I can feel Iz and Si watching me carefully. Even Selena is glancing me at me across the room.
My jaw tightens when he leans in to her. Every part of my body goes on high alert. Who the f**k does this guy think he is hitting on my girl this way? Because she is. No matter what she says, she’s f**king mine.
My fingers tighten on the side of the counter at that thought. There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t want to go over there and kiss the f**k out of her in front of everyone here.
“I think this is my cue,” Iz mutters. She crosses the room and steps between Roxy and the guy. He moves back and lets Iz take him into the front room, and a bottle slams on the side next to me. I glance at Si.
Seems I’m not the only one that has issues tonight.
My eyes travel back to Roxy. They burn into her back, following her wherever she moves in the kitchen, tracing the lines of her body. They shoot daggers at any guy who looks like approaching her and eventually they get the message.
She’s off limits. She’s off limits to every motherfucker that isn’t me.
“Here we go,” Si says with too much amusement.
I look away from the guy approaching where Selena is standing and see Roxy storming toward me. Wordlessly, she grabs the front of my shirt and drags me after her. I shoot a look to Si over my shoulder, and he’s laughing.
Roxy pushes the back door open and pulls me into the yard. She looks me over angrily, her hands on her hips. “What the f**k are you doing?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s meant to be my line, isn’t it?”
“I’d tell you not to be so stupid but you obviously came out with your jackass hat on tonight.”
“Rox.” I sigh. “Can we go and talk about this? Away from here. Please.”
Her shoulders drop and she shrugs a little. “I don’t know if I want to. I’m so f**king mad at you.”
“So mad you decided to drink tonight.”
She looks up at me. “I figured you had so little belief in me anyway it wouldn’t matter.”
The hell? “Wouldn’t matter?”
“Yep. You think I’m gonna go do it anyway, so who cares?”
Who cares? Who cares?
“I f**king care!”
I want to grab her and shake her. I’ve tried everything and if this doesn’t work, if I can’t make her believe me, then I have no choice but to do the one thing I thought I could avoid. I want to beg her not to make me do it, but as every second passes without her speaking, I know I’m gonna have to.
I’m gonna have to take the biggest risk of my life.
I’m going to be walking away from her by the end of the night.
Chapter Twenty-Three – Roxy
He looks the way I feel. Angry and confused and hurting.
“But you still don’t believe in me,” I say softly.
“Jesus, Rox. I do, okay? I do.” He frames my face with his hands. “I know you can do it.”
“What if I can’t? What then, Kyle? Will this happen again and again until we finally get it?” I step back. “What if this is me now?”
“This isn’t you. We know it.”
“No, we don’t. We think we do. I don’t know who I am. Do you get that? I don’t know if I’m the old Roxy or the new Roxy or someone entirely different. Right now I think I’m the new Roxy and you hate her. You hate everything she is and everything she does and this,” I gesture between us, “This wouldn’t work.”
“I could never hate you. You know that.”
“No, I don’t.” I swallow. “You said yourself the person I was before is your Roxy. This person isn’t, is she? Maybe we’re just kidding ourselves. You don’t want this Roxy, do you?”
“Fucking hell, Rox. I want you. I don’t get how we’ve gone from a simple misunderstanding to you deciding I don’t want you!”
“But you don’t want this Roxy!” I yell, not caring there are faces pressed against the windows watching us and everyone in the yard is quiet and listening in. “This could be the person I am. It probably is. I guess…” I pause for a moment. I need to hold these tears back. Why does the truth have to hurt so much? Why does it have to break my heart even more?
Why can’t the truth be beautiful for once?
“You guess what?”
I drop my eyes to the floor. “I guess if you don’t want the person I could be, then you don’t really want me at all.”