Page 19 of Bad At Love

“Just the key to your house,” he said, sweat pooling at his neck. God, he couldn’t bear to look at her. “I never returned it.”

Her hands came to her hips. “So? Why are you returning it now?”

He sighed and rubbed his temple. “Why do I need it, Char? You or Kaasi will be here when I come over and it’s an unnecessary headache to keep track of-”

“Unnecessary headache to let a key hang from that monstrous bunch you have?” she said, folding her arms across her midriff with a resolve he knew too well. She wouldn’t let this go until it was all out. But for once, he couldn’t back down either.

“I just…”

“What, DP?”

“I don’t need to be here all the time, invading your privacy. Our lives are too…”

“Too what?”

“Stop sayingwhatin that tone,” he whispered, frustration making his voice low. Forty years old and he still hated confrontation.

“Yes, well,” Chaaru said, her mouth wobbling, “apparently everyone important in my life has things they’ve been stewing over. You know me. I’d rather just have it all out in the open.”

“I just think our lives don’t have to be so…linked,” DP said, finally meeting her eyes. “You know what they say.”

Her eyes widened with shock, her chin rearing down as if he’d yelled the words at her. “What? What do they say?”

“Familiarity breeds contempt,” he said, blurting the first thing that came to his mind.

She flinched, her shoulders bowing just a little. And he hated himself for hurting her like this.

“So you find me contemptuous?” Even as she tried to hide it beneath bluster, a whisper-thin crack emerged in her voice. “Because you found me cuffed to the bed in my lingerie at some rando’s apartment?”

“Jesus, no,” he said, covering his face with his hands. “You know I’m the last man who will shame you for how you live your life. You know that, Char,” he said, desperate to escape. But he’d begun this, and she would see it through until there was no way back to normalcy for them.

“Then what is it? First Kaasi and now you…” Her breath blew out in a long, ragged pant. “I’m scared,” she said, rubbing a finger over her brow. His brave, hearty lioness rendered small. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

“Let it go, Char. Just this one time. Leave it.”

She walked around the coffee table to him, such earnestness in her eyes that all he wanted was to pull her to him and never let go. Raising her hand to his face, she rubbed her knuckles over his jaw, then let go with a shuddering breath. “It’s about pulling you away from the date, right? DP, you have every right to be angry. Rip into me and I’ll take it.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Nothing is a big deal with you,” she said. Her voice rose and fell on a catch. When she spoke next, it was a solemn whisper. “Except here you are, breaking up our friendship and quoting shitty proverbs.”

She fell back onto the coffee table as if her legs had given out. When he reached out to catch her, she leaned away. The growl of thunder outside and the pounding rain underlined the fracture he’d willingly started.

“I’m not breaking up our friendship,” he said, his own voice cracking. It felt like there was a crack through everything now. Him, her and…them. “I don’t think I can, even if I wanted to.”

She paled, eyes flaring with pain. And he realized it was the worst thing he could’ve said.

“Clearly, you’ve given this some thought,” she said, getting to her feet. “But you know what? I’m not giving you up so easily.”

Her words rooted him to the spot. It was exactly what he wanted to hear but only a hollow imitation of the real ones.

“I’m going to fix this,” she said, throwing her rain jacket on over her robe haphazardly. With her hair wild and dried tears drawing lines over her cheeks, she looked like some kind of enraged Goddess. Car keys and phone in hand, she muttered, “I have her address somewhere here.”

Thatgot DP moving and before he realized it, he was snatching the phone and keys from her.

She rushed at him, trying to grab them, all fury and fresh tears. His mouth dried as he stared at her helplessly, floored even then by her fierce beauty.

The slip and slide of her body, her tits against his chest, was pure torment. Desire twisted through him like a coil, and he realized with an out-of-body kind of horror that he might be too late at this puny attempt to save his sanity.

---