Page 24 of Not Your Basic Love Story

Dev took a step back, chai teabag in hand.

I gripped the counter in front of me, releasing a shaky exhale. I was intoxicated by his presence, an addict in need of another hit, and unsure if it would ever come.

Inviting him up had been a mistake. He had clearly been uncomfortable with the idea, wanting to ‘respect’ me, whatever that meant as if having sex with someone you liked was disrespectful.

But, if the roles were reversed and it was me wanting to wait before having sex, the last thing I’d want is some guy pressuring me into it.

Though, that didn’t stifle my curiosity. “Are you normally like this with women?” I asked, fingernails tinkling on my glass.

He looked up from his cup, adorable brow furrow emerging. “Like what?”

“Do you have a three-date rule or something?”

Dev held his cup in both hands, mulling it over, but didn’t say anything.

“It’s just, you didn’t seem to have a problem having sex with me in Mexico, when we were perfect strangers. But now that we’re here, you want to wait. I’m fine waiting, I mean, until you’re comfortable, but I just want to know why.” I reprimanded myself for saying ‘just’ so often, a permission word primarily used by women. I’d managed to rid it from my vocabulary in work settings, but with Dev, I didn’t want to come across as pushy.

A smile curled the edges of his lips as he blew the steam from his mug. “If I remember correctly, you kissed me first, and then you led me to bed.”

My cheeks flushed with the memories of our hot, sweaty nights together, my lips twitching into a smile. “I didn’t hear you complaining at the time.”

He set his mug down and approached me, his hands finding their way to my waist. As I forced myself to look into his big brown eyes, the hint of anger that had wormed its way into my subconscious melted away.

“There’s so much I want to learn about you,” he said, his voice low and more seductive than he ever could have imagined. “If I take you to bed, you and I both know it’s all we’ll ever do. We rushed into things in Mexico. Because of that, you didn’t tell me about your ex. If I’d known about him, I might have made some different choices.”

“Do you regret what we did?” I asked, unable to mask my worry.

He hesitated, then shook his head. “No. But I do wish you’d told me. I still know nothing about what happened between you two, how long you were together, or anything.”

“After I tell you, will you be comfortable enough for, you know—” I winked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Is this a quid pro quo?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Quid pro quo, Dev,” I replied in my best Hannibal Lector impersonation.

He snorted a laugh. “I don’t think quid pro quos include sexual favours.”

“I don’t think there’s any limitation to that sort of exchange. But I was kidding. Of course, you don’t owe me anything. But I do owe you an explanation.” I heaved a sigh. “Well, we’d better sit down for this.” I took his hand and led him to my couch. Dev set his mug on a coaster(swoon)before pulling my legs onto his lap.

It took a moment for me to collect my thoughts, unsure of where to begin. The breakup was still so fresh. Miranda had been busy planning the final stages of her wedding, and it wasn’t the sort of thing I’d talk to my mom about, so I’d bottled it up. Not a healthy coping mechanism by any means, but it was easier to file it away in storage than deal with it all on my own.

Well. Better get this over with.

“He cheated on me,” I began, my voice flat and without emotion. “Cliché, I know. We had been together for a year and a half. I found out he had been cheating on me for the last four months of our relationship. When I caught him…”

My attempt to lay everything out as plainly as possible was already failing as my throat constricted. I had avoided talking about this for so long; locked away the pain and the hurt and the embarrassment. Opening this small hole threatened the integrity of the entire dam.

He gave my knee a squeeze. “You don't have to talk about this if you don’t want to. But I’m here. And you can cry if you need to.”

A man? Telling me it’s okay to cry? My heart fluttered. “No, I’m alright,” I said, voice wavering past my forced smile, betraying how I truly felt. “I knew something had been wrong for a while. Looking back, it was obvious. I guess it always is. Hindsight, you know? One day he said he had to work late, like so many other days. I decided to surprise him at his office with food. I got our favourite take-out and went to his work, but he wasn’t there. His co-workers, the way they—”

I choked on a sob, a betraying tear running down my cheek. He rubbed my arm. I forced myself to continue, sniffing hard.

“The way they looked at me, it was awful. They all knew what was going on. They pitied me. I never felt so stupid in my entire life. I went to his desk, and I—I guessed his password, it was the same as our Netflix account, and I saw the emails.”

“That must have been really hard to read.”

The more tears that escaped, the less control I had on them. Like a Band-Aid, I forced myself to continue, ripping through the next part as quickly as possible. I blubbered on, unsure if he could understand me, and not really caring. “When I told him I knew, he didn’t even try to lie. I asked if he was sorry. He said he was. And then— And then I told him I’d forgive him, that we could work past it, that we could— could still make it work, and he— he chose to leave me. He didn’t want me at all.” I pulled myself away and wiped my nose on my sleeve. “I’m just so— so disgusted in myself, how I could let someone cheat on me, and know he obviously doesn’t care, and then say I can forgive him and welcome him back. What— what’s wrong with me?”

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