“I didn’t want you to be burdened with it. My family—they’ve done horrible things and you—you’re the best thing in my life. I can’t let them get to you.” This isn’t going the way I planned. Everything I say only makes her angrier.
“So you would have never told me about any of this?”
“It’s not like that. It’s not that simple. You don’t know my family—”
“And now I never will.”
“They screw people up. All I wanted to do was protect you.”
“I don’t need to be protected. I need someone I can trust. Someone I can lean on when I have a bad day. Someone who knows that they can lean on me. I thought we might be headed somewhere. You don’t get to play around with me just because you feel it would be fucking best for me.”
“Is that what you think we’ve been doing? Playing around. Just fucking.”
“Wasn’t that you’re idea? Just fuck someone, you said. It was more important that I get laid in your mind than anything else. Then I made the stupid mistake and I trusted you. I let you in. I thought this might be more than just some fling, but clearly I was wrong.”
She tries to push past me again, and I have to stop her. Nothing rational is coming out of her right now. She’ll believe me if I can just find the right words.
“Of course this was more than a fling. I haven’t been with one person this long in years.”
“So it’s an extended fling because we’re not on the same playing field. You played me just like Tanner, telling me exactly what you thought I wanted to hear.”
“I never broke that trust. I didn’t lie to you.”
“You broke it the second you decided to lie to me about your family. I asked you time and time again to let me in, but you never did. It’s too late, Cash. You should have trusted in me. Like I trusted in you.”
It takes everything in me to let her go. She shoves past me, heading down the stairs. I am not able to hold her here, but I follow her down the stairs. This is not going to end. I refuse to let this happen.
“Do not compare me to Tanner.”
“You both keep secrets, you both play around with my emotions. You play me like a fiddle because this whole thing is all about you.” She ticks each point off on her fingers. With each strike I can feel her temper rising. “In the end, both of you want me to listen to your reasons for leaving me in the dark. Well, I’m done listening.”
“So you just pack up and leave, because it’s not worth fighting for? That how you do things? Isn’t that how this went with Tanner?”
“You don’t get to say something like that to me.”
I give in to the anger and pain that’s been yanking on me since this whole conversation started. One of these days, I’m going to slug my father for this. It’s his fault all of this is happening. If only he’d been a better human being.
“See, here’s the thing, I’m not sure what I’m fighting for, because the only thing I know about you is a lie, and I don’t date liars. Have a nice life, which I’m sure you will. There’s a bar full of pretty women just waiting for you every night.”
She slams the door on the way out. It bangs open giving me the perfect view of her retreat. I sit on the stairs and for the first time, I want out of this bar. I can’t make myself go back up to the room where Savannah just was.
I’m fucked, and for the first time in my life I hate it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Savannah
I had half a mind to go back to my apartment when I got out of Cash’s, but the thought of going back to a place where we’d spent so much time turns my stomach. Instead, I end up banging on my best friend’s door early in the morning.
Cassie answers a little bleary eyed, but once she sees me she opens the door and ushers me in. I’d been so careful about sharing my problems with her because of her past, but right now I just want my best friend.
“All right, coffee or booze?” she asks.
“Coffee.” The alcohol will have me making bad decisions, like running back to Cash and listening to his crazy reasoning behind this decision. I bury my head in my hands and try to block out all of the horrible words I threw at him.
Ryder hands me a cup and retreats out of the room. Probably for the best, because right now men are likely to get chewed up and spit out if they come within three feet of me.
“You enjoy the coffee. I’m gonna make some plans,” Cassie says. I curl up on her couch and cocoon myself around the coffee. The table Cassie and I found at the flea market does look good in the apartment.
Maybe I should move. Or at the very least, redecorate. Starting with a whole new bed.
After what feels like millennia, Cassie comes in a stack of clothing under her arm.
“Get dressed, we’re going to spoil ourselves rotten.”