Page 102 of Suits and Spark Plugs

“Okay. Finish.” His eyes were like granite as he folded his arms over his chest.

This was a Connor I’d never seen. I’d seen angry before, but this was different. This was angry with a layer of hurt and disappointment, and all of those emotions were directed at me. Before I could work out what to say, he jumped back in.

“Actually, don’t finish. I’m smart enough to recognize a breakup speech when I hear one.”

It was like a punch to the gut. “What? You’ve been expecting me to break up with you?” He was supposed to understand me. He was supposed to trust me like I trusted him. But he obviously didn’t, and the way my stomach dropped told me I’d never eat again.

“And here you are, fulfilling that prophecy.” His voice was hard.

In confusion I matched his hard tone. “I don’t understand you. Just the other night you told me you’d been waiting for a chance to be together. Why would you date me at all if you expected me to end it?”

“I could ask you the same question. Why would you date me, knowing you never intended to stick around? You just told me you were shocked when your mom asked if there was a place for me in your future, like you’d never thought about it at all. Do you know how that feels to hear when all I do is think about you and our future? You say it’s too soon, but it’s not for me. I have been waiting for a chance to be with you. I’m a fool for believing it would go anywhere when you’re...” He cut off what he was going to say, but before I could speak he almost shouted, “I’m not a risk, Liv. I have a steady job, I have a home, and I’m not a bad guy. What else do you have to have from someone? Are you really that difficult to please?”

His words ignited an insulted fire in me. “Just because you’re a good guy who has a steady job doesn’t mean that I should suddenly give up my personal goals and rewrite my entire future. That kind of stuff takes time and thought. It’s not all emotion.”

“It’s not all science either. It’s chemistry, and going with your gut, and just knowing things without overthinking them.”

Now I was ticked, which was good because it masked the gaping hole that was growing in my heart. “I’ve seen what happens when people dive in with no plan or no foresight, and I’m not living my life that way.”

His eyes shuttered. “I’m not spending my life trying to convince someone that I’m worth sticking around for.”

My stomach heaved once more in agony. “Is this how you do it?” I asked in horror. “You reel the girls in and then when they fall for you, you pick a fight with them so they’ll handle the breakup for you?”

I tried to stalk around him, but he stepped in front of me. “You’re blaming me for this?”

“That’s what you do, right? Break girls’ hearts?” I hissed.

“No, Liv. You’re the heartbreaker. You’re the one unwilling to see any version of the future if it isn’t the one you create. You’re the one walking out on me.” He leaned in close, and I almost shriveled on the spot at the look of utter, bleak disappointment that he was trying so hard to mask.

I struck back, my own hurt making me just as vicious. “I didn’t come here to break up with you, Connor. Far from it. I actuallyhavethought about our future together, but one hint of misunderstanding, and you’re shutting down and bowing out. Guess neither of us can escape our assumptions about each other.” I spoke cruelly. “We’re both meant to be alone.” The last words came out on a broken wobble. How could he not see past my words to how I was feeling? Did he truly not understand that he held my heart in his hands and I’d never get it back if he let me go?

His face shifted and his eyes froze. “Looks that way.” We stood like blocks of ice, staring, hearts pounding for several seconds before he took a step away from me. “Goodbye, Liv.”

Red hot fire flared up in my chest. “Just remember when you wake up tomorrow and you think over what happened tonight, thatyoubrokemyheart,” I stuttered out on a voice thin with despair as my mind screamed,Please don’t do this, Connor. Please don’t let me go.

He said nothing as he walked into the house, slamming the door behind him. I fled down the porch steps and to my car. The sound of the engine starting shattered the awful silence around me, and I sobbed the entire way home, barely seeing the road, and praying for the night to swallow me whole.

CHAPTER TWENTY-seven

The facts were in. My track record with love was complete trash. In the past five months I’d had two boyfriends and two breakups. One had left me feeling melancholy. One was ripping my heart out piece by piece, each breath painful.

The day after the horrifying misunderstanding with Connor I had the lunch shift at the diner, but I couldn’t sleep and by six o’clock in the morning I was rage-cleaning the entire house. When Mom and Sadie questioned me about it, I crashed onto the couch in a pile of tear-soaked blankets while they did their best to comfort me.

I showed up to work with the same enthusiasm as a kid going outside to scoop dog poop. Thankfully Kelly had the same shift. I texted her something dramatic, and she quickly agreed to show up fifteen minutes early so that I could fill her in on the entire debacle. We sat down next to each other at a table where she appropriately expressed her undying need for vengeance and offered to bust his kneecaps.

“The thing is, I went over there to tell him that I realized I didn’t need to move or break up or any of those things to be happy. Instead I made a total mess by bumbling through it and he purposefully misunderstood. He dropped me without letting me finish or try to explain. I don’t understand. I thought we had a good thing. I know it had only been about a month, but he’d become such a part of my life that I actually thought he might be my...”

“Soul mate?” Kelly finished when I couldn’t. I shrugged. “Would you be more comfortable calling him your best bet for evolutionary coupling? The one with the highest probability of success?”

This made me laugh, and I leaned over to hug her with one arm. “No. Science has nothing to do with how I’m feeling. If science were everything, I’d be dead right now because my heart literally stopped beating last night.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked as I released her.

“I don’t know what to do. This isn’t the first time he’s gotten mad at me, if you’ll remember. After the tire iron incident he froze me out for a week. Maybe I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who reacts this way when they’re upset with me.”

Kelly nodded. “You’d be at risk of hypothermia daily.”

“I’m serious. I need someone who can take the lumps with me and keep communicating.”

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