Exposed : My Mountain Man Protector(38)

I got up off the bed.



“Do you even want me there?” Blake asked. “Do you even want me in your life at all?”



I turned to him with a frown. “How could you say such a thing? You know I do.”



But Blake wasn’t looking at me. Getting out of bed and striding into the bathroom, he said, “You could’ve fooled me.” The slam of the door was the period to his statement.



I stared at the closed door for a minute. There were no sounds inside the bathroom, no water, no movement, nothing. Almost as if…he were waiting. As if Blake were waiting for my knock, my call, to apologize, to explain myself, to talk things over and make things right.



I paused and then walked out of the room without another word. Blake didn’t understand. This was just the beginning. With the whole Angelo situation, with my parents’ and now probably Lila’s disapproval, things were going to be difficult for some time. If he couldn’t take it already, I’d rather he walked away now.



Breakfast was as many eggs and mini sausages as I could shovel into my mouth. I ate to forget, to avoid. I ate to not think, to fill my thoughts so thoroughly with taste that it absorbed everything. By the time Blake plopped into the chair beside me in the dining room, I was on my ninth sausage. He sat down with a plateful of bacon and raisin toast without a word. Glaring at me, he took big, vicious bites of the toast. I kept my gaze averted and said nothing.



The rest of breakfast was tense waiting. When I left the table, Blake still had half his toast left. He grabbed it and took it along with him as he strode after me.



In the room, we went through a mechanical depositing of things into the duffel bag before we stormed to the front desk and dropped off the key. We still hadn’t said a word to each other.



Once we got outside, I paused and turned to Blake. My gaze beseeched his, and his face softened.



“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked. His face transformed before my eyes.



“Yes, I’m sure,” he replied in a snarl.



He strode ahead of me and asked, “Where to now?”



I looked at my phone. It was only 10 a.m.



“Explore Bookseller’s?” I said.



Blake’s response was to walk in the direction of the building that Explore Bookseller was in. The walk there was long and awkward, each of us hurrying forward with our gazes straight ahead.



Every time I glanced over, Blake’s face was that same implacable mask, almost unrecognizable.



I should have talked to him, said something, especially now before we saw Lila of all people. But I couldn’t. Letting things take their doomed course, watching it all fall apart helplessly, was better than trying with all I had and failing.



This visit to Explore Bookseller was much different than the last. Since both seats were taken by slouching youths, Blake and I were forced to stand. We read our respective books (mine being Anna Karenina and his All the Pretty Horses) in separate corners.



Finally, after I’d read the same sentence four times, a quick glance at my watch confirmed it was time to go.



Another awkward walk in silence. It was obvious when we got there, as the Aspen Hickory House was hard to miss. Topped with a giant snarling bear and plastered with signs of all types, we would have needed to have our eyes closed to not find it.



My feet felt like they weighed 100 pounds as I walked up to the door. I didn’t want to do this: see Lila, hear what she had to say. I knew how this ended.



Inside there was a mishmash of signs and sports memorabilia, and tourists and locals alike jovially spooned down steaming dishes.



“CLAIRE!”



There, in the corner of the room, yelling so loudly she could have been right in front of us, was Lila.



She swept up and over in a flash of red hair and neon pants and enveloped me in her arms.



“Claire! You’re all right! You’re fine! You look fine. Are you fine?” Before I could respond, she said, “I’m so glad you’re all right!”



Then, again before I could answer, her red mouth curving, she declared, “God, Angelo was always such a bastard. Good riddance!”



By this point, many of the other restaurant-goers were casting furtive looks in our direction, while Blake remained resolutely beside me.



Lila, however, blabbed on obliviously. “Well you look fine. I got us a table by the back. You’ll have to show me all around. Oh, it’s going to be great!”



I smiled thinly, and just as I was about to point out Blake, Lila noticed him. She squinted at him for a minute and then turned and started walking toward the table she’d been at before. Blake and I followed her.