Page 41 of Dance All Night
“Jess, I need you to understand something. I’m leaving to spend the holidays with my family because that’s what I do, and I’m respecting your choice not to do that. You will be alone over Christmas because that was your choice. You’ve sworn up and down that it’s what you want.” He turned, and his eyes roiled with emotion. His body fairly vibrated with it. But what was it? Frustration? Anger? Something else?
“So, I’ll give that to you,” he continued, slashing a hand through the air. “Even though I wish to god you’d come with me, or let me stay with you, I’m going. Alone. Because that’s whatyouwant.”
She swallowed hard. He was right. Nothing he’d just said was a lie. So why did it feel so awful? She tried for bravado. “Don’t get it twisted, Nik. You’ve known this about me from the start.”
“You’re right.” His lips pressed together and his eyes pinched like he was in pain. His voice was tight with emotion, but strong. “But you know what else I know? You mask your feelings with humor. You answer a question with a question. You say you don’t want to get into something serious because people play games, but you’re the one who’s been playing, ever since we started this, because you’re too scared to take it seriously. So you tell yourself that I must be playing, too, when the reality is I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. So ask yourself, Jess, are you taking life seriously, or are you just playing around?”
She sucked in a breath, stunned silent.Fuuuuck. He’d told her.
And she couldn’t deny a single word of it. She was still that lonely girl listening to Nina Simone in her tiny bedroom, dreaming of someday making a deeper connection with someone.
Suddenly, only one thing mattered, and she had to get it out before the tears backed up in her throat let loose.
“Will I see you at New Year’s?”
Shit, she’d just answered a question with a question. Again. But as much as she needed space from him now, she also needed to see this through to the end, to see him one last time.
Even if their midnight kiss would also be a goodbye.
His shoulders slumped, and he looked absolutely defeated. She’d done this to him. Made this vital, energetic, happy-go-lucky man look so sad and wounded. How had everything gone so wrong?
“Maybe,” he finally answered, and it was the confirmation of everything she’d feared from the start.
He wasn’t coming back.
He must have accepted the tour. But then, why shouldn’t he?
He’d made her believe. Gotten her feelings involved. And now he was leaving for good. Just as she’d known he would. There had never been a real chance for them.
She tried to make her voice light and breezy, to belie how much she was hurting inside. “Well, lemme know if you come back. You know where I’ll be. But like I said, I think it’s best if we don’t contact each other over Christmas. See ya.”
The second she turned around, the tears spilled over, and she hurried into her building’s lobby, dragging her suitcase. Behind her, the car door opened and slammed.
She took the elevator up to her empty apartment. She’d only been gone one night, but it was like she hadn’t been there in months. Everything seemed strange.
And then it hit her. No Christmas decorations.
She took off her shoes and jacket, left the suitcase by the door, and climbed into bed fully dressed.
Already, she missed him. Would it have been so hard to invite him up instead of sending him away?
And then the tears really flowed, because if it had been easy for her, she would have done it. But she hadn’t. So, what did that say about her, that she’d run all the way from Chicago to Los Angeles, looking for connection, only to push away the most amazing man she’d ever met?
Chapter Nine
December 24th, Christmas Eve
Nik loved Christmas.And he loved his family. It was wonderful to see his parents, to see Natasha and Dimitri celebrate their first Christmas together, to see Alex and Marina so excited about the upcoming birth of their first child. Christmas in the Kovalenko family meant being surrounded by loving couples, people who had happily settled down because it was worth it when you had the person you loved by your side.
Nik wanted what they had. He’d never noticed the little signs of connection, of love, between the people around him. The way Alex leaped to refill Marina’s water glass before she could get up. How Mitya hung on Tash’s every word. The way his father came up behind his mother in the kitchen to rest his hands on her shoulders and knead her muscles gently.
Nik wanted all of that and more.
With Jess.
She didn’t want any of it, though. Didn’t wanthim. She preferred to stay home, alone, whiling away the holidays watching TV. And when he got back?
Despite her invitation to text her when he returned to LA, he didn’t have high hopes. After all, she’d also said they should have no contact while he was gone. She was probably trying to find a way to let him down gently.
