Page 112 of Down Bad

“My point’s that everyone seems to get something from you.”

He watches me from over the top of the car, waiting for more, those kind, sweet, annoying eyes of his locked on me, patient.

I scowl. “Just wondering what the fuck you get.”

He doesn’t say anything. After a second of thinking it over, or maybe thinking of nothing at all, he just gets into the car, closes the door, starts the engine back up.

Did I say one thing too much again?

Finally go too far?

When I get in the car, too, I stare ahead, refusing to apologize. My points are damned valid. And after dealing with whatever he had to deal with dropping off flowers for fuck-face Bellamy, he should know exactly where my frustration’s coming from.

Then he faces me and says, “I get the pleasure of treating you to dinner after a long day, that’s what.”

I blink at him.

Dinner?

Still don’t know what the hell’s in my head when, half an hour later, I’m sitting across a tiny table from Wyatt in the corner of an old restaurant in town. He’s happily chowing down on a 6-ounce sirloin, well-done. Who the hell orders well-done? Might as well gnaw on a shoe at that point.

I can barely enjoy my surprisingly tender medium-rare cut of meat, eyeing Wyatt over this damned table like I’m itching for a fight, for him to understand what the hell’s got me so hot, why I can’t seem to sit still.

“That was nice,” says Wyatt after finishing his last bite.

“Had better,” I lie, going for a sip of my water.

“I meant bringing me lunch earlier.”

I stop, lower my glass.

He shrugs. “I can’t remember the last time anyone’s brought me lunch. Didn’t get to eat it, but it’s in the fridge at work, and I’m gonna enjoy it tomorrow.”

“Gonna be a soggy-ass mess by then.”

“Well, it’s my soggy-ass mess, and I’m gonna enjoy it because it came from you.” He gazes at me. “I suspect it’ll taste even better because of that fact alone.”

I lean forward. “Fine, is this what you’re wanting me to see? That life can be all happy soggy salads and old ladies smiling when you bring them flowers? Sure, you can ignore the assholes in life, but it doesn’t mean you’re doing yourself any favors by continuing to let them walk all over you like—”

“Mr. Bellamy doesn’t walk all over me. He pays my bills.”

“Someone else could be ‘paying your bills’, Wyatt. The cost of being happy isn’t learning to tolerate assholes standing over you.”

“So you want to tell me how to run my business then?”

His happy mask is starting to crack. I feel it. I hear it in his voice. And it makes me push harder. “If it means keeping you from turning a blind cheek and learning to stand up for yourself—”

“What even are we?” he cuts me off.

I stop cold.

Fork still in hand for some reason.

Mouth open.

What even are we, he asks, and I have no answer.

“You’re not my boyfriend,” he goes on, saying it simply. “We aren’t dating. We’re …” He shrugs. “I don’t know what we are. Just neighbors? Fuck buddies? Neighbors who are fuck buddies?”