I had been pacing back and forth so intensely that I was surprised the tiles hadn’t warped under my feet. X had just handed this over to two people I didn’t know at all—people I didn’t trust. Without even checking with me.
By the time he walked through the door, he regarded me with caution. As he damn well should.
“It’s going to be okay,” he assured me, holding his hands up in surrender.
“It’s going to be okay?” I asked. I flung my hand toward the garage. “I don’t know your driver. I don’t know your mother. How is any of this okay? Sure, just take this dead body off of my hands—no bigs!”
“I thought you’d be relieved.” He came around the counter, lifted his arm like he was going to touch me. I quickly stepped back.
“Don’t touch me, not right now. No.” I shook my head, and then was pissed my hair wasn’t pulled away from my face, because every miniscule thing was pissing me off. “You didn’t even ask me if I’d be okay with that. You took charge, without giving me a say.”
“I can’t believe you’re acting like this right now. I’m doing you, I’m doing us a favor. You said yourself Claude looked like an assassin, so I’m not sure why you’d be upset that he’d take care of this for us.”
“Am I supposed to take comfort in the fact that Claude, hired by your mother, is very likely able to get rid of people without a trace? Just in case you haven’t noticed, your mom isn’t exactly Team Lucy right now. Not that I blame her.”
“I trust Claude,” he said, and braced his hands on the counter top. “If I trust him, you can trust him.”
“Oh? How do you figure that? A man that is on your mother’s payroll can dispose of people—people who would threaten your social standing. Like, oh I don’t know, me.”
He shook his head, his hair falling over his forehead. “Are you suggesting my mom will have Claude dispose of you?”
“Is it really that far-fetched, Xavier?” I hated myself for sneering as I used his name. I hated myself for this whole conversation, but my anger burned so bright that I couldn’t stop the steamroll of shit that was rolling over my brain. He hadn’t even asked my for opinion. He’d just done what he wanted, without asking me if I was comfortable with someone I didn’t know, and didn’t trust, taking care of this huge fucking thing. “She seemed pretty fucking blasé about Ronald being in your freezer, in the grand scheme of things. More like she was inconvenienced than horrified—so is it impossible to believe she may have had a hand in things far more nefarious than disposing of some piece of shit drug dealer’s body?”
“I think you need to calm down.”
“Oh, fuck you. This is not a situation for me to ‘calm down.’”
He moved like he was going to come around the island that separated us, but I counter-moved. I did not want him touching me right now. Lust would only cloud my brain, and it was already a shitstorm in there right now.
“I don’t want you to touch me. If you knew me at all, you’d know that’s the last thing I’d want right now when I’m stressed like this.”
His jaw set, and I saw the way that particular line of dialogue hit him square in the chest. “If I knew you at all? I think I know you better than you think I do—but not as well as I’d like to. But you’re cagey whenever I try to get you to talk about things. So, no, I don’t know about your family, or how long you were in jail. But I know what makes your heart skip, because I’ve felt it, with my palm laid over your chest. I know that you use movie plots when you’re feeling a need to make up for an inadequacy you feel in yourself.”
“We’re not talking about this right now.”
“I’m not sure why you think you get to decide what we are and aren’t talking about.”
“Because I’ve been making the decisions this whole time. To come to your house after Ron died. To bring him here and put him in your freezer. To buy the jackhammer and the cement and everything we’d need to put him under your garage floor. And then you just ripped the rug right out from under me out there, handed him over to Claude without even consulting with me.”
“So, is this about your lack of control over the situation?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Every decision I’ve made, I made sure you agreed with it first. This time, you took charge—of unquestionably the most significant decision. And I didn’t have a choice. You took that from me.”
“I’m not going to tell Claude to forget about it, just to satisfy whatever ego-bruising you feel.”
My mouth fell open and ice hardened my veins. “That’s what you think this is about? Are you for fucking real right now? This isn’t about my ego. I could go back to prison, X. I know, living the life you lead, that’s small potatoes for you—why should you give a shit what happens to me? But what if your mom decides to get rid of me too? She could have Claude get rid of me or she could find a way to put me back in prison. It wouldn’t be that hard for her.”
“I’m not going to let that happen,” he said, but he didn’t sound like he was completely sure.
“Your mom lectures you on eating enough fucking spinach, X. And you take it from her. I don’t think that it would take a whole lot of manipulating from her to get you to agree to whatever she wanted you to do.” This was too intense, all of it. It felt like my heart was going to pound its way out of my chest from how hard it beat. Everything was surfacing. All my feelings for X, for the fuckup with his mom, for my future.
X’s eyes hardened over. “Why are you acting like this? Why are you saying these things?”
“Acting like what, X? Like someone whose life could very well be on the line with the stupid decision you made?”
He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling, blowing out a breath. When his eyes returned to mine, he said, “You’re acting crazy.”
“Crazy?” I growled. “I am not crazy. I may be selfish, I may be rude. I’m a felon, but I’m not crazy. I steal shit occasionally. I break into homes from time to time. I lie a hell of a lot. Occasionally, I murder people. Oh wait, no! That was you, asshole.”
“Crazy is obviously a touchy word for you, but that’s how you’re acting.”
“Because you don’t know me! The last time someone made a decision for me, without letting me in on it, do you know what happened? I got shoved to the ground by a cop.” I lifted the side of my lip and showed him the chip in one of my molars. “Chipped my tooth. And then I was handcuffed and tossed into the back of a car. And spent three-hundred and forty-seven days showering with a dozen other women who I constantly had to stay strong around in order to keep them from knocking me down. I didn’t have any family to take care of things for me. I had myself. I’ve always had myself.” I pulled at my hair, feeling endless, restless energy in my fingertips.
I was on a roll. “And if we’re going to throw that C word around, have you ever examined yourself? I mean, really.” I snapped my fingers in the air. “You have all this money, but you don’t even work. I’d have to do a solid month at the diner just to afford your silverware. Your fucking spoons would cost an entire month of my salary, X. You don’t live in the real world. So, no. You couldn’t possibly comprehend why I’d feel upset that you made a decision—a huge decision—without my input.”
He didn’t look angry at me, like I’d expected. He looked resigned.
“And now you’re ready for me to get the hell out of your house, aren’t you? Don’t let me hold you up.” I ran upstairs, and felt a twinge of anger when I didn’t hear him follow me. He was just giving up.
I didn’t need him to fight for me, but I wanted him to stand the fuck up for himself. He let everyone around him beat him down. I wanted him to get good and angry. To fight for something, for once, even if it was his own damned pride.
When I came back down the stairs, he was still braced against the counter, staring a hole into the marble. As I grabbed my purse, he looked up. “After everything I’ve done for you, I can’t believe you don’t trust me, Lucy.”
Ooof. Shot right in the heart.
I would not break. No, I wouldn’t. Not in front of him. I wanted to see him fight—for himself, and for me. To tell me the things I needed to hear—to know I wasn’t alone, like I’d always been. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how badly I didn’t want to be alone anymore, especially when alone meant I’d be without Xavier.
“After everything you’ve done for me, I can’t believe you won’t stand up for yourself. I can’t believe you won’t trust me. That I have an equal investment in the decisions we make. When you handed Ronald over to your driver, at your mother’s encouragement, we stopped being partners.”
I slung my purse over my shoulder, and left his house without a look back.
I’d made it a whole three blocks before the first tears slid down my cheeks. I wiped them furiously away as I pulled up Uber on my phone. X hadn’t come after me. I guess I’d successfully pushed him away—which is what I wanted, wasn’t it? I didn’t want to be beholden to anyone, especially not after my ex. I’d promised myself I’d be the one in charge, I’d make the decisions. Because if my decisions cost me jail time, the only person I could be pissed at would be myself.
X didn’t understand, but how could he? I hadn’t really given him a chance. All of this was my own doing, and I needed to get the hell away from him before I corrupted him any further.