Cocky Bastard(47)

Aubrey flipped around so fast that she accidentally backed into a display of plastic iced-coffee cups, knocking them down like dominos onto the ground.

Seeming unphased by the disaster she’d just created, she stood staring at me with her hand over her chest as if it were holding her heart in.

I took my baseball cap off and crossed it over my chest. With pleading eyes, I whispered, “Princess.”

Looking like she’d just seen a ghost, she slowly shook her head as if to say ‘this can’t be happening.’

I took one step toward her.

She held her hand out, stopping me in my tracks. “No! Don’t you dare come near me.”

My heart fell to my stomach, and it felt like my guts were twisting.

This was not how I pictured things going down.

I lifted both of my palms. “I won’t. But please, just hear me out.”

“You’ve been stalking me?”

“Not exactly.”

We were both silent. Filled with humiliation, I bent down and started picking up the cups she’d knocked over. Aubrey stayed frozen in the same spot.

Nosy Melanie spoke from behind the counter, “Why won’t you just listen to what he has to say?”

Aubrey’s chest was still rising and falling. She finally spoke, “Let me ask you this, Melanie. If a guy led you to believe that he cared about you, then fucked you and left before the next morning without so much as a sticky note goodbye, would you hear him out?”

“Probably not.” She laughed then added, “Well, if he had an ass like Chance, maybe.” One of the other female employees giggled.

Aubrey looked at me with daggers in her eyes and continued, “Okay…what if he never contacted you for two whole years after that, then all of a sudden showed up stalking you in your hometown. Would you hear him out?”

“Definitely not,” Melanie said. “That’s just weird.”

“I rest my case.”

Aubrey suddenly zipped past me and out the door. She was gone.

Feeling like she’d just ripped my heart out and fed it to me, I stood defeated in the middle of Starbucks.

After a minute of staring blankly outside the store window, I heard a voice inside my head that sounded awfully like Mum. “Grow some fucking balls and fight for her.”

And that marked the end of my subtlety streak.

I flew out the door and ran down the street, hoping I could track her down before she went inside her building.

There was no sign of Aubrey anywhere. Flying through the revolving doors, I spotted her as she was waiting to get into an elevator. Just as she disappeared into one, I stuck my hand in the doors to open them.

She was alone.

Tears were pouring down her face. She’d been crying.

As the elevator rose up, I hit the stop button.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she screamed.

Panting, I said, “If this is the only way I can get you to listen to me, then so be it.”

“You can keep me trapped in here for—oh, I don’t know—TWO years for all I care. I’m not talking to you. Maybe then, you’ll know what it feels like.”

Locking her against the wall with one arm on each side of her trembling body, I said, “I’m glad to see you’re stubborn as ever, Princess.”

Seeming uncomfortable with my close proximity, she swallowed before saying, “I need to get back to the office. Move this elevator, or I’m calling the police.”

“I get that you’re in shock. You weren’t supposed to find out that way.”

“Is there a good way to find out that the person who tore your heart to shreds is now stalking you?”

She had a point.

“Probably not. But you have to let me explain.”

The words that came out of her mouth next were hard for me to hear. “Do you realize how long it took me to get over you? My life is only just now getting back to normal. You can’t come back after two years and expect me to just let you in after I’ve fought so hard to let go of you. I’d finally let you go. Please. I’m begging you to leave.”

My chest was so tight it felt like it might burst.

She’d let me go.

Well, too fucking bad. I’m back.

“I’ll go…for now. But I’m not leaving town until you agree to let me explain what happened. If you still want me to go after you’ve heard it all, then I swear to God, Aubrey, you will never see me again for as long as you live.”

Her eyes started to water again as she looked into mine. Without taking my eyes off her, I let go of the stop button and pressed the number for the next floor.

“I’m staying at the Sunrise Motel, room eight. I still have the same cell number as before. You call me when you’re ready to listen.”