Page 11 of Only You and Me

Her face and neck grow flaming red and her shoulders tense. It’s instantly clear she thinks my comment is some dig at her rather than a statement about the fact that loving a woman for the last nine and a half years who can barely tolerate being in my presence is its own special brand of torture.

She sits down and crosses her arms over her chest. “Fine, Ben. You want to do this? You think rehashing long buried shit is necessary? We’ll do it. But know this—we’re only having this discussion once. Then it’s done. And we’re only doing this because you obviously need some closure. So have at it.”

She stares at me with a challenge in her gorgeous eyes. Now’s my chance to back down. A smart man probably would…

“Well, it’s clearly not ‘buried’, or you wouldn’t still be so pissed about whatever it is you think I’ve done to you.” I know it’s the wrong choice of words as I say them, but I’m unable to reel them back into my mouth as they fly out.

Trina gets up and closes the door, then returns to her seat.

“What Ithinkyou’ve done?” Her voice is a near whisper now, and the hatred and disgust I see in her eyes is downright frightening. “I really have to hand it to you. How you played the long game with me—five years. Bravo, Ben.” She pauses and does an annoying slow clap. “Though it’s not all your fault. I was the fool who listened to you when you asked me to take a chance on you after five years of telling you no. I was the sap who took it to heart and let you—Elladine’s most renowned player—convince me you were telling the truth when you said I was your dream for the future and that you… that you loved me. That it was only you and me.”

I hate the pain in her voice even more than the disdain, and the way her voice hitches on her last sentence causes a sharp stab in my chest.

“Trina, I?—”

“No, I’m not done.” Her voice is harsh now. She’s forced any hurt out of it. “You took advantage of the things I shared with you about my dreams, and about the lack of love from my parents growing up and used them to craft the perfect lies. All so I’d let you fuck me. Because all I ever was to you was another conquest.”

I jump up, furious now, and lay my palms flat against her desk, leaning across it toward her. “None of those things I said to you are”—I close my eyes and regroup a second before opening them again—“were lies. And we didn’t fuck. We made love and you know it.”

A sarcastic laugh erupts from her, and she looks up at the ceiling. She takes two deep breaths, then returns her glare to me.

“Bullshit. It was just sex to you—a game. Are we done now? Do you feel better?” Her condescending tone grates on my nerves.

“No, we aren’t done. Because you have an inaccurate recollection of what happened. How could you say it wasn’t love? That it was just sex?”

Trina catapults out of her chair so fast it smashes into the wall. “Because you don’t make love to a woman you claim is your future, and then flaunt someone else in front of her three days later because of a fight.” She practically spits the words at me.

“You were embarrassed to let anyone know we were together!” I yell at her.

“Because I was afraid! I was twenty-two years old and had only kissed two other men, only had sex with one before you. Your past and your reputation—it was overwhelming. You’d already been with four other women and couldn’t remember how many girls you’d made out with. Too many to count, you said. You had a reputation, and that made me scared I was another notch in your belt, and I’d look like a fool when all our friends and family realized it!”

“Well, you were wrong, and you walked away from what we had—you ended things with us—because of it. You wouldn’t talk to me. It ruined us.” The sadness in my voice fills the room.

“First of all, you ended things when you stormed out and left me alone in my apartment, in the bed where we’d just been intimate.Afteryou had told me you loved me. And yeah, I wouldn’t talk to you and walked away after you showed me what I meant to you. When you made me watch you let another woman sit on your lap in the diner, play with your hair, and whisper in your ear three days after you claimed you loved me.”

I’m speechless for a few seconds.

“Trina…”

She pushes past me and walks to the door, opening it, and I follow her with my eyes. With her back to me, she stops and says, “You got what you came for and I’m done here. Show yourself out.”

She leaves without another word.

I don’t know how long I stand there, but I can’t leave yet. Regret grips my chest, compressing my lungs and preventing me from taking a deep breath because, for the first time in over nine years, my focus is no longer on how she hurt me but how my actions in the diner that night clearly broke her.

CHAPTER3

TRINA

Walking from the car to the hotel entrance in a backless dress when the temperature outside is only thirty degrees sucks. But gingerly stepping across sections of black ice in stilettos is like some kind of fashion Hunger Games.

“I can’t believe I let you two pick out my dress for this. And these damn heels. You realize you’ve pushed me over six-feet tall in these, right?”

Emily and Shayna both giggle like schoolgirls instead of acting like the mature, professional twenty-seven years old they are. That they still play this game from college where they pick each other’s outfits for special occasions and try to one-up each other on the sexiness factor makes me wonder if I should even use the word ‘mature’ to describe them. That I let them suck me into their web of fashion wars makes me question my sanity.

Once we’re safely in the hotel and none of us have fallen—miraculously—we follow the music and signs to the ballroom where the Elladine Fire Department’s annual Valentine’s Day fundraiser to benefit the local chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association is being held.

As we enter the room, Emily and Shaynaoohandahover the sparkling silver and red decorations and the plethora of lit up hearts hanging from the ceiling.

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