Loving Lily(31)

Fuck. I could already see the wheels turning in my father’s brain.

“Actually, I think I have the perfect person for the job!” my father jovially declared before everyone started plotting the dates and so forth.

My protests remained unheard as the three carried on planning as if I wasn’t in the room. My patience was thinning, but I knew I had to wait to address Lily until the folks were out the door and driving back to their home in Brentwood.

The second their sedan disappeared from the driveway, I instantly shut the door and stalked towards Lily, infuriated that she was manipulating the situation. As to what advantage she was trying to seek, I had yet to discover.

“Have you lost your mind? Do you think this game you’re playing is fucking funny?”

Her stony demeanor resurfaced. Gone was the sweet, caring woman acting before my parents. She gave me a slashing look and folded her arms underneath her chest.

“I wasn’t aware I was playing any game, Drake. I just thought your dad really wanted for us all to go, so why not?” she scoffed, baiting me. “Funny how I seem to recall that it was actually you who was getting too close for comfort with your intern.”

“Oh, now you care about what I do?” I spat at her, the fury I had bottled inside starting to shake out of me, needing confrontation and some fucking answers. “I don’t get you. For almost two months now you’ve completely ignored me, and now you want to go on a five-day vacation with my parents? Are you fucking serious right now?” My head was pulsing. I felt like I was about to explode from being so incensed I couldn’t see straight.

For weeks, the desperation and helplessness from stopping the train wreck from going farther, distancing us, had been ignored and pushed to the side because I had always thought her pregnancy was making her rash and hormonal. However, as the time had gone on, her treatment of me simply couldn’t be pinned down to being pregnant and hormonal. There were times I actually almost believed she loved treating me like shit.

When she didn’t respond to my angered words, I took a dive and went all in with it. “Just fucking say it, Lily! Just say what’s been making you treat me like a cold, heartless bitch.”

“Fuck. You. Drake.”

“You have! For weeks, you have been fucking with my heart and mind, and yet, you can’t even face me, can you?” I dared her to look me in the eye, but she was bent on being stubborn. “Say it, Lily!”

“Enough!” she screamed at me, her eyes welling with hot tears. “Enough! I can’t deal with this, especially right now.” She sniffed, making me instantly feel like a total fool. “If you don’t want to go, then don’t. I’ll go with them.” She wiped her tears while barely glancing at me. “You do what you have to do, Drake. Nothing’s stopping you. You’re free to do as you please.”

My blood ran hot and then cold at the sound of her words.

“Excuse me?” I hissed, needing her to emphasize where the heck she was heading with this thing. “What are you trying to say, Lil? Just dish it out to me cold like you’ve been doing for weeks now. There’s no need to play coy or act as if you care.”

Her nostrils flared before shutting me down, hard. “Go drink or whatever it is you do at this time of the night. The door is wide open. Feel free to leave whenever you’re done here.”

She was circling the issue, but at the end of the day, it came down to the same answer. She was basically telling me she didn’t care what I did anymore. What had happened to the love she had strongly vowed months back? Was her love so fickle she couldn’t even fight with me? Couples tended to fight all the goddamn time, but with her, she didn’t even want to. She basically didn’t do fighting, but headed straight to the noose, killing whatever had bound us in the first place.

Like I had said before, she was being such a cold, heartless bitch. Oh, the irony. Karma definitely was a sick fuck.





Chapter 15

Drake



I walked out on her that night.

As much as I hated to say I was a quitter, I just couldn’t face her after she had hurled those words at me. I couldn’t face the terrible fact that my marriage was crumbling so fast it seemed there was no hope of ever fixing it.

It was like a landslide—with one altercation, everything went down. Marriage wasn’t supposed to be like that. I understood we were new at this, that we had also married way too quickly and didn’t do the normal “dating” thing, but we were better than this. Hell, she was my childhood sweetheart, for crying out loud! How could she easily dismiss us without a fight?