Page 89 of Scoring Eden

Realizing I’m not going to respond, he peels his gaze from the ground and looks at me. “Are you okay?”

“Never been better.”

“Good. That’s, uh…”—he scratches the back of his neck—“good.”

“You said that already.”

He tries to smile, but it falls short. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

I pull the covers farther up my body and fold my hands in front of me. Watching. Waiting. For an apology? I don’t know. I’m not sure I even possess the will to hold out hope for one of those, but an acknowledgement of what happened would be nice.

I don’t get it.

“Did you guys eat dinner?”

“We ordered Chinese food.”

There’s a flare of something in his eyes, and I know why. Chinese food is his favorite. I even ordered his favorite dishes: chop suey and crab rangoon. I barely touched it and sent the leftovers home with Aspen. I may be pathetic, but I can be a petty bitch when I want to be.

Alex clears his throat. “That’s good.”

“Is that all you’re capable of saying today?”

“No, um, I came because…well, I came to say…” He looks at the bed and points with a half-mast finger. “Can I sit?”

I wave my hand as if it means nothing to me what he does with his body, but internally, I’m spiraling because, let’s be real, we wouldn’t be in this situation at all if I didn’t care what he does with his body. I care. A lot, it seems.

I also don’t want him anywhere near the bed because, if he looks closely enough, he’ll see the stains from my melted ice cream and, most notably, my tears.

He lowers himself to the mattress beside my outstretched legs, his back ramrod straight, and I hug my knees to my chest in a bid to put as much distance between him and my body as possible.

Not that it makes much difference. I can smell him from here. The eucalyptus scent of his body wash is stronger than usual, as if he’s recently showered, and it makes the backs of my eyes burn. Because the last time I was close enough to smell him, he was kissing me with more passion than I have ever experienced, and his fingers were curling into the place I haven’t had the courage to share with anyone since my divorce. He was looking at me like I meant something…right before he took a hammer to my trust and shattered it.

“Well, spit it out, then.”

He flinches. Then he gathers himself, sucking in a breath, and settles solemn eyes onto me. “I’m sorry.”

Huh, I wasn’t expecting that.

Men don’t apologize. They ask how long you’re going to be pissed off for, or redirect the blame onto you, but they don’t ever say sorry—at least, not in my experience.

“For what exactly?” I reposition myself so I’m sitting higher on my pillows. “Fingering me on a washing machine, or for ghosting me afterward?”

He winces. “Both, I guess.”

Shit. That hurts. “Well, I’m sorry you regret what happened, but need I remind you that it was you who initiated it?”

“No, I know, I–” His eyes screw shut. “Wait, I didn’t say I regretted it.”

“You said you were sorry it happened.”

“Well, yes, but no, that’s not what I meant. I didn’t regret it. I don’t regret it. It’s just… I… Shit, what I’m trying to say is… I don’t…” he trails off, his brows pulled so tightly together they’ve become one enormous eyebrow. He picks at the bed sheets, dusting off invisible lint, and I subtly shift the bedding away from him to hide the evidence of my mental breakdown. Because as cold as I’m being right now, I have, in fact, spent the last forty-eight hours in inconsolable tears.

I force a bored expression onto my face. “It seems like you don’t know what you want to say, so why don’t you go and take another two to three days to work it out? And I’ll just wait here, alone, in an apartment that isn’t mine, without any of my own stuff, while my son asks where you are. And I’ll lie and tell him you’re at training camp, because I don’t actually know the answer, and you’re not answering your messages. Sound good to you?”

His face crumbles. “God, Eden, you’re killing me here.”

That earns him a caustic snort. It’s possibly the most unattractive noise I’ve ever made, but I couldn’t give less of a shit. “Oh, I’m sorry, you must be really suffering.”