Page 110 of Wilde's End
“What do you want me to say?”
It’s the shock of the damn century when he doesn’t answer. Because while he expects me to let everything out, Wilde keeps it all inside. He tears open this wound of a conversation and then leaves me to deal with it, while he watches me, unsettles me, for what? His amusement? A way for him to feel superior to me?
I stand up, the irritation only he can bring spurring me intoaction. I cross the room until I rock back on my heels in front of him.
“Conversations go both ways,” I tell him.
“They do.”
“Well, if you’re so interested in this topic, maybe you should be the one to lead it.”
Wilde’s throat bobs under a swallow, something I’ve never been able to witness with his beard in the way. “I asked first.”
“And I’m asking back.”
“Kennedy came to see me. He’s worried about you.”
“He’s always worried.”
“He thinks I’m mistreating you.”
I study Wilde’s eyes. “And are you?”
“I don’t know.” His hand comes up to trail the bruises over my chest, left from his post last night.
“I have no complaints.”
“Yeah,” he huffs and pulls back a little. “That’s part of the problem.”
“And what’sthatsupposed to mean?”
“It’s supposed to mean that you don’t know what it’s like to be treated well, and I’m the last person who can show you that.”
“I never asked you to.”
“No, but I think Kennedy’s right that it’s about time someone did.”
Anger trickles into my veins. “Whythe fuckis he getting involved at all? It’s not his business.”
“He’s worried.”
“About what? We’re having sex, who fucking cares?”
“He does.”
That’s rich. The second Wilde leaves, Kennedy is going to know exactly what I think about his interference. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Maybe he does.”
“Great. So you’re on his side?”
Wilde drives his palms into his eye sockets. “There are no sides. I’m lost, Hudson.”
Hudson. Not city boy.
We’re right back to that place where we started. On opposite sides of the same argument. It hits me, very fucking suddenly, that for the first time in my whole fucking life, I expected more. How stupid am I?
Wilde is fierce and passionate and driven … just not when it comes to me. It’s no secret that whatever we had was going to end eventually, but eventually wasn’t supposed to be right now. Is it so bad that I wanted a guy who was only interested in me for a change? To live in some ridiculous fantasy that doesn’t exist in the real world?
