Page 86 of Blindsided
Mac opens the passenger side door for me and asks, “How long are you here?”
“My flight leaves early tomorrow,” I reply, hopping up into his car. “Think you could give me a ride to the hotel I booked by the airport?”
Mac frowns as he slams the car door shut and walks around to the driver’s side. He folds his large frame in behind the wheel and says, “You’re not staying at a hotel, Freya. You’ll stay with me.”
I rub my sweaty palms over my jean-clad thighs nervously as it begins to sprinkle outside. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” he asks, his voice low and clipped.
I turn to look at him, his green eyes curious as his hair flops over, partially concealing them beneath the ginger locks. My hand has a mind of its own and reaches out to push the hair off his face. “Because we’re just friends.”
“Friends can have sleepovers, Cookie. We’ve done it quite well before if you recall,” he says, his voice low as I watch his hand land on my knee and rub slow circles on it. The sensation has an instantaneous effect on me, and I hate myself for it.
I chew my lip nervously and pull my leg away from his touch. “I don’t want to be that kind of friend anymore.”
Mac’s hand suspends in the air, and I feel all the teasing sucked out of the car instantly as he absorbs my response. His face hardens as he pulls his hand back and says, “Understood.” He starts the car and pulls out of his parking stall. “Airport it is, then.”
We drive in the pouring rain towards the hotel I told him I’m staying at, and I start to wonder if it was a bad idea for me to come. My presence clearly didn’t improve his game at all as I’d hoped. And the tension simmering between us makes me wonder if it’s even possible for us to just be friends anymore. Maybe we’ve reached a point of no return. He clearly doesn’t want a friendship with boundaries any longer, but I can’t survive a friendship without them. I need more or less…I can’t survive in the grey area in the middle.
Mac pulls up to the hotel and parks his car, thunder rolling around outside, echoing the stormy mood he’s currently vibrating with. “Is this the right hotel?”
“Yes,” I murmur and turn to face him as he stares at the building in stony silence. “Mac, look at me.”
The muscle in his jaw tics as he grips the wheel so tight his knuckles turn white.
“Mac, look at me,” I repeat, my voice loud in the smallness of the car.
He turns to face me, his eyes glowering with anger.
“What is your problem right now?”
He half smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I could ask you the same thing, Freya. You fly all the way to Glasgow and show up at my match. In the year and a half I’ve known you, you’ve only ever gone to one game of mine, and that was before you and I were truly friends. You sit by my grandfather, and you make him laugh with your cuteness the entire time, and now you want to go to a fucking airport hotel instead of spending the night with me. So seriously, you tell me what your problem is because I can’t keep up at this point.”
My chin wobbles at his scathing tone because he’s never directed it at me before. Not like this. “I don’t want to go through what I just went through.”
“Which is what?”
I shake my head and stare out at the rain hitting the windows so fast that it feels like we’re stuck in a grey vortex of hell. “Mac, you left me in London. You gave me no warning that you were planning to leave; you told me after the deal was done. All this happened after you kissed me in front of all of our friends and gave me the impression that we were…”
“We were what?” he snaps.
“More than friends!” I snap. “More than friends with benefits. Just…more!”
“We were more,” he bellows back at me. “But my circumstances changed.”
“And I’m just supposed to be okay with that?” I ask, my voice cracking at the end. “Mac, I’m not okay with that!”
“What do you want me to do about it, Freya? My grandfather is dying. I signed a new contract. I’m here now, and I can’t just leave to be with you!”
I nod, accepting all of this and knowing it has to be this way, but knowing it doesn’t take away the ache in my chest over what could have been between us and how easily he left me behind.
“I just can’t go to your flat and spend the night and act like…” my voice trails off because I don’t know if I should finish this sentence. It’s too revealing.
“Like what? Fucking say it,” he growls.
“Like we haven’t made love to each other,” I cry, my voice coming out in a strangled sob. “Like I don’t miss your touch and the feel of you lying next to me in my bed. Like I haven’t missed the feel of your lips on my shoulder when you kiss me goodbye in the mornings. I miss all of that, Mac. I miss you!”
“So do I!” he booms, and the volume causes me to squint. “I even miss your daft, perverted cat!”
