She leans back a bit. Her teeth drag across her plump bottom lip.
I take in a deep breath, remembering how all of this started for her. What she was solely after in the beginning before I got her to consider trying things my way.
Just having fun was her main interest then. A quick root and then nothing. I thought we were past this absurdity.
“What’s going on with you? What happened?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even and not at all accusing.
She looks away. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
Her worried eyes flick back to mine.
“Don’t do that,” I tell her, straightening up. “Don’t shut me out when something obviously happened, Brooke. You were just calling me your boyfriend and crying about it on the footpath, and now suddenly we’re just having fun. Help me understand why you’re being like this. Talk to me.”
She looks down at her cup, her hands still wrapped around it. She sighs through a heavy blink. “Everyone keeps asking me what we are, or what we’re doing. I don’t know what to tell them because I don’t know. I don’t know what this is.”
“Who is everyone?”
“Joey. Dylan.” She pops the tab on her lid but doesn’t take a sip. “They’ve been bugging me about it all morning. Non-stop. They want me to admit things. Label it. Us. I don’t feel like I should have to. It’s nobody’s business what I’m feeling, or what I’m not feeling.”
Our eyes meet. My hand curls into a fist on the table.
What she’s not feeling?
“That’s complete bullshit,” I want to say, but I don’t. I didn’t coax her to sit with me and practically beg her to talk just to have an argument.
But I know she feels something. I know this changed for her too. I don’t buy her denial.
She’s freaked out because she knows what this is. Not because she doesn’t.
Brooke looks away again, tapping her fingers on the cup.
I force my hand to relax and slide it into my lap. “All right, then don’t. Don’t explain it,” I suggest, catching her cautious attention. “Why do we have to be labeled anything? Why can’t we just continue doing what we’re doing, ‘cause I thought it was pretty fucking great.”
“But everyone . . .”
“Who cares about everyone?” I ask, my voice growing a decibel louder. “Am I asking you to tell me what this is? Or if you could start referring to me as your boyfriend?”
Fucking hell. Not that I don’t love hearing she did that. Why couldn’t I have been present for that little offhand comment?
She frowns. “No, but you’re asking other things of me, Mason. Things I don’t do.”
“And you’re doing them.”
“I know that!” She startles at her own voice, her eyes round and regretful as she looks around us, at the attention we’ve possibly drawn, but I wouldn’t know for certain if that’s the case.
I can only look at Brooke. The anxiousness radiating off her in thick waves. I can practically feel it on my skin.
She shakes her head, drops her elbows to the glossy table-top, and begins rubbing at her temple. “I know that. God, do you think I don’t?” she asks much quieter, looking across the small table at me. Her hands lower. “Do you have any idea how strange this is for me? How confusing this must be, for me? Do you? Or are you just caught up in getting me to do things your way? As long as I’m agreeing to shit, that’s all that matters, right?”
I give her a hard look. “What? No, of course not.”
“Yeah, okay,” she remarks coldly, averting her gaze.
My brow furrows as I observe her.
Jesus Christ. Women are mysterious creatures.
I force myself to calm down, once again. The beginnings of one hell of a headache builds behind my eyes.
Just pull her aside and tell her you love her.
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
Right. Because she’s not already freaked out enough. Bombarding her with that confession will surely do her in.