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I was at my mom’s house for dinner, and Mimi had made her famous lasagna.
“You look really tired, honey,” my mom said, as she sat beside me on the couch.
“That’s a good thing. I need to end my days exhausted. I pushed an enormous tire up and down a hill this morning after my run. Joey doesn’t mess around.”
“I’m proud of you for working this hard.” She smiled as Mimi came to sit in the chair across from us.
“I want to hear about the girl,” my grandmother said.
My mom chuckled. “You haven’t talked much about Demi this week.”
“Yeah. I’m putting some space there.”
She raised a brow. “She scares you, doesn’t she?”
“I’m not scared of her, Mom.”
“You’re scared of how you feel about her. I saw the way you were with her when we stopped in her shop last week, and you just happened to be there.”
“I was picking up my protein shakes. Her business is next door to mine.” I really didn’t want to get into this with them tonight, or any night, for that matter.
“You’re reading into it.” I pushed to my feet. “I need to get some sleep. Thanks for dinner.”
I kissed each of them on the cheek and slipped on my coat.
“Love you,” they both said at the same time.
“Love you.”
I made my way home, and just as I was putting the key in the door, the sound of gravel beneath someone’s feet had me turning.
Demi was storming toward me. A ball of fire.
She slammed me in the chest with the bag in her hand. “Here are your shakes for the next few days.”
And then she turned on her heels and started marching across the alley.
“Hey.” I chased after her because avoiding her was one thing, but seeing her and staying away was a completely different thing.
I couldn’t.
I wrapped my arm around her wrist, and she shook me off. “Leave me alone, Romeo.”
“Stop.”
She whipped around, and there were tears streaming down her face. My chest was so tight that it was painful. I reached forward to wipe the tears from her cheeks with the pad of my thumb, and she slapped my hand away.
“I can’t figure you out. You spend all this time with me and then you kiss me, and what? You didn’t like it, so you just decided that you won’t talk to me again? You avoid me at your gym, and you won’t make eye contact with me.” Her lip quivered, and the need to pull her against me was strong, but I crossed my arms over my chest to stop myself.
“That’s what you think? Come on, Demi. You’re smarter than that.”
“So, tell me what it is. Tell me why you hate my family. Why are you punishing me for something that I’m unaware of? Because all I think about is you, and now you’re shutting me out!”
“I think about you every fucking second of the day. That’s the problem!” I was shouting now, and I set the shakes on the ground and threw my hands in the air. How could she not know this?
“So do something about it. Don’t run from it.” She shook her head. “I didn’t take you for a coward.”
“I’m not a coward. It’s not me that I’m protecting. It’s you.”
