Page 4 of Trouble in Love
“What?” She spun to face me, glared, and then snapped back to Clara.
“Maybe I should go and come back later,” Clara whispered, the tremble in her voice increasing with each word.
“Or maybe you should go and never come back. Or go jump off a cliff?”
Fighting laughter, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Ana.”
“What?”
“Would you please give Clara and me a minute to talk? Please…” I flashed her the look I knew she couldn’t resist. The one where I fluttered my lashes and smiled in the way I knew made my dimples pop. It worked. Her constipated look eased, but her hazel eyes narrowed and quickly returned to her nemesis.
“Fine. But I warn you now, Clara. If I come back in here and my brother is any more pathetically depressed than he already is, I will come down on you so fucking hard your teeth will—”
“Anabela. Leave.” The sternness of my voice made Ana jump. It was rare for me to stand up to her attitude; judging by the scowl, she didn’t approve. I remained silent as she left, giving Clara the DeNiro “I’m watching you” glare so intensely she walked straight into the wall.
“She’d be scary if she weren’t such a klutz,” Clara sighed.
All I could manage was a weak humph. With a veritable cauldron of emotion bubbling below the surface, another glimpse of her round, rosy cheeks would bring me undone, causing me to do something embarrassing like declare my love and beg her to marry me.
‘Cause that worked so well last time.
“How’s the pain, Luca? Surgery on your Achilles. God, I can’t even imagine. It must feel like a—”
“A fucking nightmare?”
A small, wounded peep escaped, before she cleared her throat. “I was going to say a bad dream, so yeah. Same, same.”
Slightly raising my head, I twitched into a weak smile we both knew was forced. Still, it was encouragement enough for her to edge away from the door. “Have they got any idea how long the recovery will be? Dallas said it could be months.”
Don’t speak his name around me.Pouting, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Dallas is an expert on partial Achilles severing and reconstruction, is he?”
Another peep. Another step closer. “It was an accident, Luca. Surely you know that.”
“I don’t know anything of the sort. I mean, think about it, Clara. The guy has been front and center for the last three crises of my life. I was photographed getting sucked and fucked at his party. You may recall his involvement the day my fiancée ditched me at the altar, and then there’s what could be my last game of pro hockey. That’s a lot of accidents.”
Cheeks ablaze, with her index finger tapping against her chest, Clara closed the remaining space between. “I know for a fact he had nothing to do with those paparazzi shots. He cares about you.”
“Oh, yeah,” I scoffed. “He cares so much that he decided to wait till the freaking priest did the whole, speak now or foreverhold your fucking mouth shut, before declaring his undying love for you.”
“The timing was unfortunate, yes, but he panicked. Seeing me up there, throwing my life away for a man I didn’t love–who didn’t love me–made him see the light.”
Like I did when you ran the wrong way down the altar and burst through the doors?
Mortally wounded, I fixed my gaze on pink Nikes and rainbow laces. “I do love you, Clara,” I uttered, my voice, pitiful. Weak.
“You might, but not in the way I deserve. Not the way he loves me.”
Ouch.
Swollen and bruised, injury prevented me from leaping from the bed, so I wriggled as close to the edge as I could and reached out to beg for her hand. It was pathetic; I knew it. But I also didn’t care because her floral scent, which had felt like home for the last year and a half, was washing over me, and I’d missed it as much as I had her. “We might have come together in less-than-perfect circumstances, Clara, but I tried —.”
“I know you did,” she interrupted, tugging her hand away. “‘And you’re one of my favorite people. But you can’t force that connection, and you… we… were kidding ourselves to think we could. A relationship built around a lie can never live outside of it.”
Double ouch.
I pulled the metaphorical dagger from my heart, my soul crumbling in its wake. “Wow. That is beautifully, painfully accurate.”
Clara’s fingers tickled the ragged hem of my bed sheet, an unconvincing smile playing on her lips. “As painful as having a skate blade slice seventy percent of the largest tendon on your body?” The poor attempt at humor did nothing but bring the fullburden of my naïveté crashing down. She was everything to me but to her, I was just a fucking joke to her. “Sorry,” she winced, a beat or twenty too late. “I’m just nervous to say what comes next, even though it’s the logical step.”
