I wish I could tell you that I expect her eyes to open one day and see how she treats me. She never wanted me around as a kid, and she only wants me now to pay her bills. And keep her boyfriends kept up as well.
I walk away, sick to my stomach with the entire situation. Just as I reach my room and pull out my phone, there's suddenly a large hand holding my wrist. I look over my shoulder to see Dale staring at me, a hint of determination in his eyes that I don't understand.
"Has she always been like that?" he asks.
Swallowing down my pride, I shrug. "Most of my life. Yeah. Each breakup makes her more and more insecure and needy. That's why I lived with my dad. He wasn't a picnic, but at least there weren't random men coming in and out of the house or kicking us out of our home whenever they felt like it. After the third time my things were thrown out of the home that belonged to my mother-by one of her boyfriends-I basically quit going over there at all. It's not like she wanted me around anyway. She found me to be an annoyance, because guys liked women without kids better than women with kids."
His lips tense like he wants to say something.
"You're not like her," he finally says, and I arch an eyebrow.
"I know."
He grunts then pinches the bridge of his nose. "I meant you and me … This mess between us," he says, looking at me again. "If you forgave me, you wouldn't be following in her footsteps."
My chest starts to ache, and I take a shaky breath.
"All those men … Harley, they just use her. You know it. I've never used you. None of those guys loved your mother." My heartbeat quickens, and a lump forms in my throat as those blue eyes soften and study me. "I love you. And I'm going to make mistakes, but I'll never make the same mistakes twice. And I'll never, ever push you away again."
I pretty much miss everything else he says after the L-word bomb. Too many contradictory emotions war inside me, half of me desperate to go to him. Half of me screams to run away before I repeat the same cycle as the shell of a woman in my living room.
He steps closer, and my feet forget how to move as I stay rooted to my spot. My eyes search his as his thumb finds my cheek, caressing it as he stares down at me.
"I'll give you space. I get that you probably need it. I'll give you time. I understand why you'd be wary. But I won't let you go. Neither of us wants that. So tell me when you're ready to let me prove how much I love you, and I'll be waiting."
He leans over, and my breath stills in my lungs. I almost tell him to take me.
Almost tell him how much I want to be with him.
Almost confess that I love him too.
But that wall remains in place-cracked all to hell, but still in place.
His lips brush mine in the barest of kisses, and he leans back. "Call me if you need me for any reason. Find me when you're ready to take me up on that offer."
He turns and walks out, and I drop to my bed, choking down air to my starved lungs. Finally, I groan as I flop to my back to stare at my ceiling, waiting for it to give me all the answers.
Unfortunately, the ceiling says nothing.
Chapter 49
HARLEY
"So he told you he loves you, and you just let him walk out," Vivica says as I finish telling her everything that happened eight nights ago.
She's been busy, and I didn't want to distract her from her job. But I'm glad she's back now. It feels wrong to talk to Dale's friends-who are also my friends now-about Dale.
Vivica is just mine. And I've really needed someone to talk to about this.
"That's what you focus on?" I ask, staring down at my notebook.
For fuck's sake. Have I really been doodling his name again?
I'm supposed to be working on a new app.
This one will take months to finish sorting with all the complex coding and various difficulty degrees I plan to introduce.
"Harley, I work in the business where women often pay me to destroy a man who has destroyed them. It's my main clientele," she says, and I look up, seeing her studying me with a frown. "Never once did I question if those men loved those women. It was clear they didn't."
I put my pencil down as I close my laptop and glance at the time. I'm supposed to be meeting the girls in two hours to go to a club. To dance. To not think. To be silly and ridiculous.
I've never done that.
And Vivica, being the insanely busy woman she is, doesn't ever have time for clubs. Still doesn't. I only have her in town for another few minutes before her flight.
"What are you trying to say?" I ask her.
"I'm saying, Dale isn't your father. Dale isn't a guy like your mom chooses. And relationships hit speed-bumps. I'm saying … well, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we were both wrong. I'm even shittier at relationships than you are-hence the reason I focus on revenge. For once, though, I think we judged wrong. Dale made a mistake. A mistake he didn't understand the magnitude of. And people make mistakes. Forgiveness is a foreign concept to people like you and me, but in this particular instance, I think it's a concept worth exploring."
Forgiveness is more than a foreign concept to me. It's like a fabled myth I've never understood. No one who has ever truly wronged me has ever sought forgiveness.
Dale was the first person in my life to even apologize.
He apologized for the past. Now he's apologizing for the present.
I've always apologized, but never truly sought forgiveness. I've just defended my actions and apologized as an afterthought.
Why is this my life right now? When did it get so complicated?
"Because you're in love," Vivica says, causing my eyebrows to crease. "You asked those questions aloud," she adds, smirking when she reads my confusion.
Ah. Great. Now my inner thoughts are leaking through my lips.
"That too, my friend, is a foreign concept to me," she says, a small, almost wistful smile curving her lips. "So this might be a better conversation to have with these new friends of yours. They'll be better guides in that area. Me? I'm here any time you want to blow his house up. My cousin Ziggy is an expert at all things combustible."
I laugh unexpectedly, and she winks and smiles as she stands.
"I need to go deliver a blackmail goodie bag to a client whose husband screwed her mother. Ew. I'll talk to you later."
With that, she walks out, and I stand to leave.
I bite down on my lip as I think about Dale, wondering if Vivica is right. Also wondering if I'm a masochist-no pun intended-for even considering putting my heart back into a blender again.
Then again, I sort of wish he'd just show up and take the decision out of my hands, make me take him back. He's the only person who can cause my brain to stutter, and he's giving me too much time to think.
Thinking, for me, is not always a good thing.
I expected Dale to charge in like the man he's been since we started dating. The man who can wipe my mind blank, and take me in new directions I'd never choose for myself.
But he hasn't.
He took a step back.
Something I should find thoughtful and respectful. Something I should appreciate.
But instead, it's annoying me. At least, it's annoying me now.
It's exactly what I wanted. Until now, Dale has never given me exactly what I wanted, except for orgasms.
Instead of dwelling on it, I rush home, find the sexiest outfit I own, and meet up with the girls. Two men are with them-two very attractive and tall men-and Tria introduces them to me. Sort of.
"These are our designated men for the night," she explains.
"Designated men?" I ask, confused.
"Kode gets a little murderous when he thinks someone might touch Tria," one guy explains-or at least he thinks he's explaining.
Tria beams like that's the best thing ever. I'm just confused.
"I'm Leo, by the way," he adds.
"And the guys tend to crash our girls' nights when they start worrying other guys are around us," Raya goes on to explain with a smile of her own.
"So we come to play the buffers. If a guy dances on you, we step in, acting like you're with us," Leo states matter-of-factly.
"And the jealous boyfriends don't mind that?" I'm really trying to understand this.
Leo flashes his grin, while the other guy snickers under his breath.
"Not usually. I'm Jamie," the other guy says, shaking my hand.
He releases me, and his fingers intertwine with Leo's. Ohhhh. Got it now.
My lips twitch as they let go of each other, and we walk into the club.
"Fantasizing about them together now, aren't you?" Rain whispers, grinning.
"Maybe a little," I admit, but I'm forcing my smile. I'm forcing everything right now.
I just want to be at home with the covers over my head as I try to sift through the mess going on in my very exhausted mind. I wish Britt hadn't had an important paper to finish. She's the one out of the group that I connect with the most.
As soon as we walk in, my eyes flit to the stage. Base Masters is up there, singing his heart out as he sways with the music. Women are congregated around said stage, hearts in their eyes as he winks at them.
"That's why we drove all the way out here," Ruby says, nudging me with her elbow. "The guys don't let us ogle him when he's at Silk."
She grins, and I go back to ogling him.
"Isn't he like sixteen?" Rain asks, confused as her nose wrinkles.