Page 62 of Personal Foul
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sydney
Once I’m no longer faced with Molly’s scrutinizing stare, I give myself the space I need, driving the wedge separating us back into place.
All the lights in my apartment are off, except for the one on my end table in the corner of the living room. The mix of the light with Netflix muted on the TV is the only light in the room.
Massaging my fingers into my temples, I amble back to my couch, where I’ve been curled up for the last twenty-four hours binge-watching Friends and scrolling through hours and hours of TikTok videos.
“Would you mind if I told you I wasn’t up for talking right now?” I ask, collapsing onto the couch and adjusting a blanket back over my lap.
“Are you going to make me leave?”
“No,” I sigh. “Maybe. I don’t even know.”
“We can’t run or hide from our problems forever, Sydney. What happened to you trusting me, to you not pushing me away when things get hard?”
Biting down on my lower lip, I think through his words. He’s right. As much as I want to push him away and avoid this conversation, I told him I wouldn’t keep running, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your history with her?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I felt like there was nothing to tell?”
“She said you were going to marry her, Colson! What do you mean there was nothing to tell?”
He shrugs off his suit jacket, tossing it on the other end of my couch, stalking toward me. He takes a seat next to me, pulling the blanket off my lap enough to let him join me, draping his arm along the back of the couch behind me.
Colson looks delicious in his black suit with his orange tie. Don’t get me wrong, I love when he when he’s dressed in his joggers or athletic shorts, but there’s something about the sight of him in a suit that steals my breath away.
He’s making it so hard for me to want to push him away or beg for space right now, even though I know I need time to collect my thoughts.
“It’s not like you think, Sydney. I swear. She was working for me back in Chicago. I hired her on as my assistant and, yes, we started to spend time together.Casually.” He emphasizes the last word.
“It was never as serious as the way I see us together. We did talk about the future, and she brought up the two of us being together long term. She joked a few times about what kind of ring she’d want, but that was it.”
He pulls back, his expression changing, and I’m unable to read it.
“It’s like no matter how hard I try, you still won’t trust me.”
“I do trust you, but you have to understand history has shown me time and time again when you think you can trust someone, they give you a million reasons why that was a mistake.”
He sighs heavily, pressing his thumb and forefinger against his eyes.
“Do you want to know why I fired her and stopped seeing her?”
I stare down at my hand, running my thumb over the edge of the blanket, not wanting to look at him as he talks about himself with another woman. Even if it’s him explaining how it ended.
“Why?”
“I guess we both have a little something in common when it comes to trusting people. After a while, I had her start helping me with errands. You know, picking up my suits for me, getting them dry cleaned, stuff like that. I hate shopping, so she’d often arrange different options for me to try instead of going into the store to buy them. I started to notice charges on my account for more than I expected, and it turns out she was putting her personal purchases on my account without permission.”
My lip curls in disgust. She’s exactly what I expected her to be, and I’m not the least bit surprised either.
“I hadn’t realized until after I ended it how much and how often she was doing it, but that’s what all of this is about for her. She doesn’t want to be with Colson; she wants to be with Colson Rush, the basketball player.”
Colson moves his hand from behind me, reaching over to turn his head to face mine.
“The fact she told you we were going to get married only goes to show she’ll still do anything to manipulate the situation to get what she wants. She hadn’t expected me to meet someone and fall in love so quickly.”
