Page 34 of Catch Him
“Well, stop that,” she said, pointing at him. “The truth thing. Because it’s not fair.”
Belatedly, she realized she was naked so she scrambled to find her clothes. They had been tossed all over the bedroom when he’d started stripping her. Her panties, her bra, her jeans and a T-shirt. When she was dressed she walked back into the bathroom. She had a clip with her stuff and she used it to pull her hair up into a knot.
She looked at the bathroom counter then. Really looked at it. His deodorant next to hers. His toothbrush in a cup alongside hers. Her fancy lotions that she liked to splurge on. All of their stuff. Mixed together. Intimately.
When she came back out of the bathroom she saw he’d gotten out of bed and put on a pair of jeans. He was hot in a suit, but he truly rocked the shirtless jeans thing.
“You’re leaving?”
She nodded. “I need space. I need to think. I can’t… I mean I need to process what you’ve just said.”
“Alright.”
She stared at him. “Alright? That’s it? You’re not mad because I’m standing in front of you freaking out right now?”
He shook his head. “I’m not mad.”
No, she thought. He wasn’t mad, but that other look was back. The one she really didn’t like. The one that made her want to hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay.
He was sad.
She’d done that. She’d made him sad, and that was its own kind of pain. This whole time she’d been worried about herself and protecting herself from pain, she hadn’t once thought about how he was going to feel when he left.
Which made her pretty selfish and sucky. Sure the jets, the restaurants, he got to keep all of that, but he didn’t get to keep her, and apparently she meant something to him.
Sinead O’Hara was important to him, and he would be sad when she was no longer in his life. It was a powerful feeling knowing that.
“I’m in deep too,” she whispered, and swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Let’s do this. I’ll go home tonight and chill, and then tomorrow I’ll come back and we’ll pretend I didn’t ask you what I did. We’ll go back to how things were and just take it day by day. Can we do that?”
“Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” she let out in a rush of what felt like desperation.
He walked to her and cupped her cheeks gently in his palms. “Okay, my lovely, then we’ll do that.”
She smiled and nodded. “I have to work tomorrow night but can we…”
“Do lunch? Absolutely. Why don’t you swing by here at 4:00 and get me?”
“Okay. I’ll come for you then.” She leaned in to kiss him, but then he was kissing her and it was fierce and intense and it made her want to whimper.
When he pulled back he looked straight into her eyes. “You know I don’t want to hurt you. You know that, don’t you?”
She nodded. She did. Because she didn’t want to hurt him, but apparently she was going to as well. An affair, a great one, but it was going to end in broken hearts for both of them.
Just not tomorrow. And maybe not the next day. Because every day counted and she wasn’t going to waste another minute wondering when it was going to end.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Goodbye my lovely Sinead, who spells her name correctly.”
* * *
Sinead calledfor an Uber and waited outside because she didn’t want to have to hear him say goodbye again.
The entire drive home, she felt a weight sinking in her stomach. Like she had done something wrong. Like she’d had this precious glass vase in her hand and she had squeezed too hard and broken it.
Why had she done that? Why had she ruined perfection with… reality?
