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“Okay,” I said.
I downed the rest of my drink and set the empty glass on the bar before letting him drag me to the dance floor. The place was packed with men and women of all sorts, and as Wade’s arms went around my waist to pull me into him, I wondered who they were. If they were friends of his he’d never introduced me to or business partners I’d never heard of. I wondered just how much of this man’s life was actually a mystery to me.
“You look so fucking tempting in that dress,” he said, his voice barely rising over the sound of the music, just enough for me to hear.
“Am I just a piece of meat to you?” I asked, adding a fake, lighthearted chuckle to not raise suspicion.
“Never,” he grinned. “You’re more than I could have asked for.”
Knowing his words were a lie yet hearing the sincerity in his voice was nearly enough to send me overboard. His lips met mine as his body moved against me, shifting to the beat of the music. God, I would miss this. I kissed him back, though it felt mechanical, disenchanted, and wrong. I wondered if he’d checked to see if Alec was watching before he’d done it, if he could feel how much I wanted this to end, if he could taste the bile climbing up my throat. He’d used me. He’d eaten me whole and spat me back out. He knew how I felt, what my fears were yet he carried on anyway, breaking every little sewn-up inch of my heart. Don’t fall in love with me, he’d said. Maybe I should have listened.
He pulled away, an annoyed grin distorting his face. “You’ll never guess who showed up while I was waiting for you to come downstairs earlier,” he said, and every part of my body went rigid. “Fucking Zane.”
“Oh. Cool.”
“I can’t believe he had the nerve.”
“Yeah.”
“He started arguing with me?—”
I stopped in place on the dance floor and moved back from him, putting my hands up. “Actually, Wade, I don’t think it’s any of my business what happened between you two.”
Confusion flicked across his face, knitting his brows together and wiping the smile from his cheeks. “What’s going on, Ray?”
“Nothing.”
————
The purr of the ignition was the first welcoming thing I’d heard all evening. “Are you still not going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” I insisted, staring straight ahead.
“Fine. I guess we’ll sit in silence all the way home then,” he huffed. He shifted the car into reverse and pulled out of the parking lot.
“I want to go back to Mom’s,” I said.
I could see the muscles of his jaw ticking out of the corner of my eye as cut across two lanes of traffic like it was nothing, heading instead for my house. “Do you want to explain why?”
“No.”
“Great.”
The night was close to being over. Freedom was so within reach that I could almost taste it, and although it should have been a somewhat exciting thought to be able to go back to doing whatever the fuck I wanted instead of being with him, all it did was feel like the weight of an elephant on my chest. I had too much to think about, too much to cry about.
Mom was more lucid now, so I could get as drunk as I wanted to, forget him for a few hours, and pass out on my childhood bed. I could drown myself in Friends reruns and pretend like I was Monica, burned by man after man before finally finding a Chandler at some point in my life. I could find peace in that. I had to.
We rode in complete silence until the car came to a stop in my driveway. I could see the faint light of the television through the living room window and knowing Mom was within reach the moment I got inside made my throat close. I wanted to cry. I wanted to fling myself at her and allow her to hold me, bawling my eyes out like I was seven years old again and someone had been mean to me on the playground.
“Ray,” Wade breathed, his body shifting toward me. “Can we please talk about whatever this is?”
I unbuckled myself and wrapped my fingers around the door handle before his hand caught my wrist.
“Please.”
“It’s done,” I croaked, sliding my arm from his fingers far too easily. Pushing open the door, I stepped out, bag clutched in my grasp and the weight of the raven around my neck feeling like a brick. “The contract is signed. I can’t… I can’t keep this.”
Reaching around the back of my neck, I unclasped the necklace. The backs of my eyes burned as I held it in the palm of my hand, black diamonds shimmering up at me. I’d almost cried tears of happiness just hours ago when he’d given it to me, but now, tears welled for a different reason. I couldn’t keep it.
