Page 83 of Doing It for Love

“Okay.”

“And I didn’t want to come home until I found something.”

I pull off my heels and set them as neatly as I can in the closet with my shaking hands. “Why didn’t you tell me that over the phone?”

“I wasn’t sure what I was doing. And I didn’t want you to worry more about money.”

“I don’t care about that. I care about you. About us. And about warming my feet in the bed when they’re cold.”

He laughs at my joke and tentatively crosses the room and pulls me into his arms.

“I can warm them tonight.”

I breathe deep, inhaling the cologne on his shirt and yelling at myself for not being more stubborn as my arms wrap around him too.

“So did you find something, then? Is that why you’re home?”

He shakes his head. “SOL.”

I wiggle from his hold and walk to my side of the bed. My molars grind as I keep my tongue from unleashing its wrath. But I know saying whatever I want to say will make him upset, it’ll make memoreupset, and I really don’t want to fight. I just want to sleep and hopefully figure out a calm way to tell him he’s a complete dumbass if he thought leaving was best.

“I love you,” he says, and I chuck the top sheet down on the bed with an uncontrollable roll of my eyes.

“Love you, too,” I grumble.Yes, damn it, I love you, but you piss me off and you still haven’t apologized.

“Wait…you’re still mad?”

I look up from the bed and see his genuine confusion. And I can’t bite my tongue anymore. “OfcourseI’m still mad. You left for three days, Landon!”

He takes a step back, eyes wide at first, then his jaw clenches and his eyes narrow. “To look for a better job! More money, benefits.” He tosses his hand out at me. “So maybeyou’dbe able to work a normal shift again.”

He didnotjust make this about me.

“Well,youcould’ve done that here. Why was it so important for you to leave?”

“I was embarrassed, all right?” His face goes red and his eyes gloss over, and my heart pounds like a two-ton weight. “I make shit. I don’t do shit for you. What the hell am I bringing into this relationship?”

I gulp and blink, and great, my eyes are watering now too. “You haveno ideahow important you are to me, do you? How important it is that you’re here.”

“It’s not good enough.I’mnot good enough. That’s why I left.”

“Stop thinking that.”

He shakes his head, like he doesn’t believe what I’m saying or he doesn’twantto. And it pisses me off more that he won’t just say “Okay” or “Thank you” or anything that means he actually heard the sincerity of how I think of him. Instead he stands by the other side of the bed, voice shaking as he tries to keep it from being so loud he wakes the neighbors.

“I was doing this for you. Forus.So we don’t have to raise a family in a hole—”

“That’s why you’re directing! That’s why you’ve put so much into making movies, right?”

“That’s never gonna happen.”

“Stop thinking that!”

“It’s not!”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“I’m not anymore.”

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