Page 29 of Half-Hearted
You know what it means! There’s literally only one meaning! Tell him the truth!
It’s not what it sounds like! Haven’t you learned your lesson already? Don’t tell him the truth!
Joel waited, his thumb continuing its tantalizing patterns on my skin. In the end, it was my curiosity that won.
“We’re not exclusive,” I said vaguely.
He didn’t need to know that Raj was Priya’s brother and that he’d only been doing me a favor because his sister had felt so bad about what had happened on her birthday.
He didn’t need to know that he’d turned me into a joke in front of all my friends. That they were making drunken bets on whether he was actually interested or just stringing me along; bets on how much more time I was going to waste waiting around for him; bets on whether or not I would attend his wedding when he eventually married someone else.
I pulled my hand out of his grasp, my throat and lungs tightening.
“See? You are mad at me.” His other hand had remained resting on my knee, and when I tried to move a few inches back, it wouldn’t let me. “No. I like you right here,” he said.
“Maybe I should just kiss you, then,” I spat bitterly without thinking. My filter was starting to slip, overwhelmed by the clustered mess of rising emotions. “That seemed to have made you want to shove me away with a ten-foot pole.”
“You were drunk,” he argued for the trillionth time.
“I knew what I was doing.”
He huffed, lips pressing together once. “Is that what you think I wanted to do? Push you away?”
“It’s what youdiddo.”
“Because it’s what Ishould havedone. Most of us don’t breeze through life getting exactly what we want, when we want it.”
The fuck? “What isthatsupposed to mean?”
“It means that actions have consequences, and I wasn’t going to jeopardize a twenty-odd-year friendship over one night of sex.”
It took everything in me to not shove at his stupid, broad chest. “Is that a fucking joke?”
“No, it absolutely is not a fucking joke.”
“Then you’re a fucking idiot.” I seethed, trying to stand up. He gripped my thighs and pushed me back down.
“Why?” he demanded. “Is that not what that was?”
“Get out.”
“Talkto me, Alexis. Is that what it was or not? Was it just sex?”
“That question doesn’t dignify a response!” We were nose to nose again.
“Doesn’t it?” His voice was firm, challenging. “Let’s do a quick recap of the night’s events, shall we? You bang on my door in the middle of the night, so drunk that you’re barely able to stand upright, and kiss me. Then you move to the bedroom, lie on my bed, and tell me you’re there to seduce me. The next morning, it’s the same fucking thing. You’re on my bed, demanding to know what I want to do to you.” He stopped, gaze simmering into mine. “Now. Where in the sequence of those events, with half my body’s blood indisposed, was I supposed to know for sure that it wasn’t just about sex for you?”
I swallowed, my jaw wound stubbornly tight.
“Tell me. Because I still don’t fucking know.” His rich voice was dipped low, insisting.
It took genuine effort to get my stiff mouth working again. “Well, for one, there was the list of—” I cut myself off,remembering.
Oh god.
“Ah, that’s right. That was when I was informed that you thought about me while you—”
This time, it was me who held a palm over his mouth, because fuck my actual life, “Don’t. Do not finish that sentence.”
