Tempting (18 page)

W
hen I walked back
into the room carrying the delivery menu for Crazy Dough, I’m sure I still wore the same contented smile that I’d seen in the fogged up bathroom mirror. It wasn’t even that it got better every time we were together; it got sweeter and softer, got deeper into my pores, like I’d never be able to pull her out. And because that’s where my brain was at, it was also why I didn’t notice the strange look on her face when I cleared the door.

She was just sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in my sheets, hair rumpled and cheeks still flushed. But it wasn’t the sated, almost tender look that I was used to seeing in her eyes. I was about to ask her what was wrong, when my mouth closed and I narrowed my eyes. It was guilt. She looked guilty as hell. And then her eyes flicked down to her left hand.

The light from the lamp on the bedside table hit the ring, that modest speck of diamond Grandma Coulton had given to me before she’d died. My heart stuttered to a stop, a cold flush covering my skin, and for a second I actually wondered if I was going to pass out.

“Where did you find that?” I croaked out. The icy flush of my skin fanned to heat, making me blink against the sudden swing in my temperature.

Adele fisted her left hand underneath her right and pressed them against the bunched-up sheet covering her breasts. I’d never seen her look so … terrified. She looked terrified.

“I’m so sorry, Nathan. I didn’t think … I didn’t—”

I held up a hand for her to stop, pinching my eyes shut for a few seconds while I tried to collect my thoughts. My gut reaction was to rip it off her finger, clench it in my hand and feel the cold metal against my skin. But I’d never told her a single significant thing about Diana. Not how she died, not the guilt I’d carried on my shoulders since the day she had. And I’d never told Adele that sometimes, even when I was wrapped around her, I was afraid that I’d never love anyone the way I loved Diana.

She stayed quiet, only the sound of her uneven breaths filling my ears.

“I’m not,” I wiped a hand over my mouth and let it stay there while I finally opened my eyes, “I’m not mad, Adele.”

I half meant it. Her ghost-white face helped ease my racing heart a little. She nodded and I walked over toward her, making sure my towel was tightly knotted around my hips.

“Why did you go looking through my stuff?”

Her nostrils flared, and she blinked rapidly, like she was fighting tears. “I don’t know, honestly. I was just happy, Nathan. I was so happy, what happened in the shower and ordering naked pizza in bed and … and we’ve never done that. And you were so happy to see me when I got here,” she paused, looking up at me with giant pleading eyes, and I could see the pulse hammering in her throat. “Weren’t you?”

“Happy?” I repeated, trying very hard not to sound snappish, since her nerves were obviously limiting her vocabulary.

“Yes. You seemed like it, at least. And it felt
real
, like I was coming home to you. Like we were real. And with what I did today, it just… I don’t know, all bubbled over, and I was cleaning up water and—”

My brain had caught mid-way through her rambling, tripping words. “What did you do today?”

“Oh.” She swallowed, shifting on the bed and hiking the sheets a little higher on her chest. “I did something for us. So we didn’t have to hide as much.”

Suddenly, I needed clothes for this conversation. I reached down to grab my fleece pants, hiking them up my legs, only dropping the towel when I was covered. “Adele, what are you talking about?”

The smile she tried to push across her face was shaky at best, but her eyes were so genuine and beseeching, asking me for something when I didn’t even know what the question was yet. “I changed my major.”

“What?” I yelled, ice prickling over my skin again. “You did
what
?”

“I changed my major,” she repeated, her voice stronger this time, her chin tilted up an inch.

“Why? You’re a damn good writer, Adele. Why the
hell
would you do that?”

Holding her head up like a queen, instead of a girl wearing a wrinkled sheet, she stood from the bed. “I changed it because of what happened today in your office. Because it will make our lives easier. So I don’t have to constantly worry about who’s looking at us and who suspects something. I changed it for
you
. And I changed it for me.”

I spun, hands gripping my hips, because I had a split second where I actually wanted to throw something across the room.

“Nathan, I can do anything else and still be satisfied. I’m smart, it’ll be easy for me to find something else. And now once this class is done, I’m not technically your student any more. I’ll be twenty two in three months, there’s nothing anyone can say about us.”

The walls pressed in on me, the pale grayish blue that always used to soothe me now felt like I was being swallowed by salt water, filling my lungs until I couldn’t breathe. That was the thing about guilt, it filled every part of you until you couldn’t get the oxygen that you needed to survive.

I felt guilt over Diana, how I’d not only ruined, but ended her life. And now Adele, making a unilateral decision about her future, which seemed so long and unending given how young she was, throwing away something that she was so talented at. Because of me. I think my skin started vibrating, because I clenched my stomach muscles tight to try and stop my shaking.

When she laid a hand on my shoulder, I erupted, whipping around and shoving it off of me.

“Why would you
do
this?” I bellowed at her face, and she shrank back. “Did we have a talk about our future that I missed?”

“Okay,” she said, staying remarkably calm considering I was ready to shatter my entire room, “I get that I surprised you. And I’m sorry that I put on Diana’s ring—”

“Don’t you dare,” I whispered. “Don’t you fucking dare say her name right now. My
wife
has nothing to do with this bullshit conversation we’re having right now.” Her face paled even more, but the black bile churning in my head wouldn’t slow, wouldn’t settle. My body wanted it out, like the words I aimed at her would somehow purge them from me forever. “You don’t just flippantly make those decisions, Adele. A grown-up would know that.”

“Fuck you,” she snapped. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. And if you’d calm down for one second so I could explain, you’d know that.”

“
Explain
? Oh yes, please explain to me how any of this makes goddamn sense.”

“You know what? I’m going to go. You need to chill the fuck out before we talk about this again.” She moved over to where her clothes laid in a pile on the floor. For the first time since I’d met her, she hid her body from me. She kept her back turned while she slipped on her leggings, kept the sheet wrapped around her shoulder while she put her bra on.

“Ahh, so now you want to talk to me about things. I get it. You’re one of
those
girls.” Her body stilled, shoulders curved in while she’d been attempting the awkward task of pulling her shirt on while not exposing herself to me. “Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. And that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? You come in here and think that getting me off, that screwing me before you tell me is somehow going to make it better that you made a huge fucking decision about a future that we have
never
talked about.”

“You’re being an ass, Nathan,” she said on a slightly wavering voice, avoiding my gaze at all costs. “And I’m done talking to you about this until you’ve calmed down.” She finished dressing, tossing the sheet back onto the bed that we’d found release on together only a few moments earlier.

“You’re right,” I said, and her eyes finally found mine. “You are absolutely right, Miss Morello. We are
done
talking about this.”

“What does that mean?” Her voice sounded shrill, taking on a panicky edge.

“I bet you’ll figure it out when you grow up.”

L
ike it wasn’t controlled
by my brain, my left arm reached out and my hand swiftly slapped him across the face. The resulting stinging in my palm paled in comparison to the pain splitting my chest down the middle.

“Fuck. You.” The words were laced with venom, the power behind them causing my voice to sound cold, furious. But my limbs shook from the boiling in my veins. “Grow up? Are you fucking kidding me?” He stared at me, unmoved, and I badly, desperately, wanted to throw something across the room, if only for the satisfaction of seeing it break into a million pieces.

I wanted to scream, to punch a hole in his chest, anything to make him feel what I was feeling.

I grabbed my jacket off the floor and shoved my arms through the holes, my mind a storm of anguish and humiliation.

My palm still stung, but I wouldn’t let him see me in pain. A sob climbed up my throat, but I refused its release as I pushed past him, flying down the stairs and out the door. The slam of the door behind me was completely unsatisfying.

It wasn’t until I’d reached the nearest subway station that I allowed myself to crumble onto a bench. I’d held it in, the vinegar that burned my throat—a product of unshed tears. But now that I was far from the cause of my heartache, I was safe to grieve. Sobs shook my chest and I held a fist to my mouth, pressing hard against my lips to keep me from crying aloud. I let my hair form a curtain around me as my composure dissolved on the cold cement bench.

When my train arrived, I sent up a silent thanks for the empty seat and leaned my head against the glass, desperate to disappear. Fortunately, no good Samaritans were after making me feel better, so the tears rolled freely and endlessly down my face as the crack in my chest split more and more each time I replayed his words in my head.

“Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. And that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? You come in here and think that getting me off, that screwing me before you tell me is somehow going to make it better that you made a huge fucking decision about a future that we have never talked about.”

It was a mother fucking echo in my head. “…a future that we have never talked about” echoing the loudest, painting his own thoughts for us perfectly clear. While I’d been imagining spending more time with Nathan, his thoughts had run a different way. He hadn’t been making plans, I had; Alone.

W
hen I was back
in the safety of my apartment, I turned my phone on silent and curled into my bed, the down comforter like a cocoon around me, over my head.

The quiet of my apartment was unwelcome, but it was all I had. And that realization pressed upon my chest, causing me to cry once again.

The worst thing about what Nathan had said hadn’t been the delivery—which was fucking horrible in and of itself—but what he’d said. He’d essentially called me a manipulator, a child, and an idiot. He’d assumed I’d buttered him up with sex, had made this big decision about my future without thinking things through. And he’d insinuated that I wasn’t mature enough to understand the gravity of the situation. All of it hurt, but the fact that he’d questioned my intelligence hurt the most.

Given the way I’d been feeling toward him over the last several weeks, I’d finally accepted that Nathan was more than a fuck, a conquest. He was the real deal, a man worth holding onto. And after running from dozens of men, it was a big fucking deal for me to find the one I wanted to stick around.

“Fucking asshole,” I blubbered into my pillow. I’d surrendered to him, given him things I’d never given another man. And he’d reduced me to what essentially amounted to nothing.

In my head, I’d seen the whole situation going differently. I’d imagined Nathan taking my news in, realizing it was ultimately my decision and while I would have respected his opinion—had it been delivered more kindly—I would have ultimately stuck to my guns. Because that was who I was. I’d never bent for a man, chased a man, wanted a man the way I wanted Nathan.

Not that it mattered anymore. I rubbed a tissue over my nose and winced when I felt the sharp cut against my nostril. To my sheer horror, when I pulled my hand back I realized I was still wearing the engagement ring. The very catalyst to our fight.

Wrapping the fingers of my other hand around the band, I yanked to pull it off, but it wouldn’t budge. Fuck. I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, rubbing lotion around my finger before twisting. The lotion loosened it enough to help it spin, but it still wouldn’t slip past the first knuckle.

“No, no, no,” I said, tears of frustration now falling. I couldn’t wear this. I couldn’t have this on my finger still.

After trying to remove it, unsuccessfully, for twenty minutes I gave up.

I was a shitty friend, but luckily for me, Leo wasn’t. So I dialed his number.

“Hey, stranger.”

I closed my eyes, breathed a sigh of relief into the phone. “Leo. I’m sorry. For the last month, for ignoring you. I need you.”

“I’ll be there in a few.”

True to his word, he arrived at my apartment just when I was on the verge of hysterics. I threw myself into his arms, clinging to him like the savior he was.

“Hey, hey.” Leo pulled me back and looked at me with concern. “What’s wrong?”

I held up my hand with the ring on it, my lips turned down. “This.”

His brown eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Holy shit, Add. You got engaged?”

If I thought this situation couldn’t possibly get more humiliating, I was sorely wrong. “No. This isn’t mine and I need to return it. But it’s stuck!” To illustrate my point, I tried to pull it from my finger but it wouldn’t do anything but twist, almost mockingly so.

“Okay, it’s fine. We’ll get it off.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I blurted. It wasn’t just because of the ring situation, but until he was in front of me I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed him. “I’m sorry I’m such a dumbass.”

He smiled his trademark Hollywood smile, the one that could get him anything he wanted. I wished I had such a weapon in my arsenal, to make him forgive me. “It’s okay. You’re still my friend.” He said it in a little kid voice, and I laughed. Just like that, my kissing him and ignoring him was forgotten and we were back to the friends we were supposed to be. Just friends.

He held my hand in his and turned it over. “It’s a little swollen. Did you hit a wall or something?”

I thought of the slap I’d delivered to Nathan’s face. “Or something,” I admitted. “Is that why it won’t come off?”

Nodding, he rubbed at the skin around the band. “Probably. But I saw a video on YouTube, I know just what to do.” He strode into my bathroom, returning with floss. “Do you have olive oil?”

“Hell no. I have vegetable oil. What do you think this is, The Ritz?”

Leo laughed and grabbed the oil from where I’d pointed. When we were both settled on my couch, he started wrapping the floss around my finger, just above the band, all the way to my knuckle. I watched the compression on my skin, the way it turned almost purple.

“Hold this so it stays taut,” he said, pressing the end of the floss in my hand. He poured a little of the oil into a cup and dipped his finger in, rubbing over the top of the floss and around my finger. The floss was wrapped so tightly that when he tried to tug the ring over the floss, it slid a lot more easily up my finger. Encouraged, he wrapped more floss right around my knuckle, squeezing my finger. Within seconds, the ring slid completely off and he quickly unwrapped the floss from my finger.

“You’re a genius,” I praised, rubbing the feeling back into my finger.

He was holding the ring between two fingers, examining it. “What’s the story with this?”

I moved to the kitchen sink to wash the oil from my fingers as I contemplated what to say. I didn’t want to reveal too much, but so much had happened in the time that Leo and I didn’t speak that I couldn’t blow him off.

“I met this guy and we’ve been seeing each other for a while now.”

Leo joined me at the sink. “And what? He proposed?”

I shook my head almost violently. “No. I … I found the ring and tried it on. I don’t even know why. But it belonged to his dead wife.” My stomach clenched at the thought. “And we got into a fight. I left still wearing it.”

Leo nodded thoughtfully as he washed his hands. “I’m surprised he kept it.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Well, wouldn’t you bury your wife with her ring? Why would you keep it? Unless it’s a family heirloom.”

Bile shot up my throat. “Fuck, don’t talk so morbidly, please.” But what Leo said had made sense. The setting looked old, the gold a little dull. And I’d run out of his house wearing it.

Really, my humiliation was growing by the minute.

But it was no match for the pain in my heart, the pain that had eased some by Leo’s presence and reassurance. When he left later that night after promising to see me over Thanksgiving break, I only cried for ten minutes instead of all night, like I’d anticipated.

I
slept until noon
. It was almost stubborn, as if my body had taken initiative to force me to be either incredibly late for Nathan’s class or to skip it entirely. I opted for the latter, but visited campus ten minutes before class was over, the ring sealed in an envelope, and slipped it under his door. I’d held onto the frame of the door longer than I cared to admit, almost wishing he’d end class early and come find me.

But he didn’t. And he wouldn’t.

It wasn’t until I was on the train out of the city that I received Nathan’s first communication with me since our argument. I had been expecting it, after missing class, but didn’t think he’d actually message me until he noticed my absence the following Monday, as I wasn’t planning to return until after Thanksgiving.

I
debated
for several minutes whether or not I should reply. On the one hand, getting an apology from him was like a temporary reprieve from the non-stop churning heartache I was feeling. But on the other hand, once I closed my phone and allowed myself to fall into thought, I was still so deeply hurt that I feared talking to him would only open my heart up for more destruction.

And considering I was on my way home, willingly placing me in the clutches of my family, I needed to avoid whatever stress I could, to steel myself for whatever I faced at home.