Page 7 of Coming to Grips
She faces him again.
He takes a breath.
“Anna, look, I appreciate you coming here, but we’re broken up. You need to not come back anymore.”
Color rises on her cheeks and she slowly shakes her head, wrinkles forming on her forehead. She smiles. Chase’s stomach drops.
“That horse clocked you good, didn’t she?”
“What are you talking about?” She’s nuts. That’s all there is to it.
“Then Kyle— He hates me. I know he does. But he has a thing for you. I don’t care what he claims. He poisoned you against me, didn’t he?”
Chase doesn’t know which point to address first. The idea that Kyle has a thing for him is ridiculous, so “poison” it is. “Kyle rarely talked about you at all,” he says.
“And I wonder why that was?”
“Why would he?” Chase has no clue where this is going; he only knows he wants her gone.
“Because he hates me.”
“Maybe he does, but if he never talked about you, then how could he possibly have poisoned me against you?”
Bright red lips purse and icy blue eyes narrow.
“Look, Anna, my breaking up with you had nothing to do with anything Kyle did or didn’t say about you. That was all me. Things between us hadn’t been right for a while. You know it’s true. Youknowit.”
“I’ll be better,” she says, and tears well up again.
What the fuck? If he hadn’t thought she was crazy before, he sure does now. He’s so fuckin’ glad he gave her the boot.
“I’m sorry,” he says. He’s not, really, but he can fake regret for the sake of diplomacy. “I really am, but we’re never getting back together. We’re over and we’re going to stay that way. Now, if you don’t mind, I have exercises to do.” They make a convenient excuse, even though he’s done them already and then some.
After an exaggerated breath, she blinks away the moisture. “Fine,” she says and marches out the door.
He shuts the door behind her with a firm push and lets out a sigh of relief even though he has a gut feeling he hasn’t seen the last of her. His mind reels at the Mad Hatter moment he just witnessed. She hadn’t made any sense whatsoever.
Unfortunately, her visit has completely tarnished the sheen of accomplishment off his half-eaten sandwich, and he tosses it in the trash. The microwave beeps again, but he doesn’t bother pulling out whatever it is she’d brought over. She’s taken his appetite with her.
The misty ache in his head has become a dull roar, and the bruise on his elbow and the back of his arm pulses in discomfort. He drops to the sofa and closes his eyes.
