With those words, I swing around to face him. “What do you mean, what do I want from you? I want nothing! Why can’t we just be?”
What the hell is wrong with you! I long to shout at him, get up in his face, so he hears me. Really hears me.
I lower my voice instead, each word chosen carefully. “Why are you so angry all the time, Zeke?” I pause. “My god, you can’t even handle your friends teasing you.”
“I fucked up. What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to be a good friend, but you can’t even do that, can you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, was that necessary back there?” I gesture toward the door. “You could at least have told them we were friends; they kept calling me your tutor.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“What do you expect? Jesus, how many times do I have to say, I’m such an asshole! before you start believing it? Everyone is not good and kind Violet. Some of us are mean. Some of us don’t care enough to try. Stop the attempts to make me better!”
I’m ashamed to admit my shoulders sag, defeat pressing down on them. “You don’t get it, do you Zeke?”
“No.”
“You know that Zeke out there?” I point toward the door. “That Zeke treated me like a body for hire. That Zeke is not my friend. That Zeke can walk back out that door and out of my life for good.” My arm remains raised, finger pointing. “I don’t need him.”
“Violet—”
“No! Be quiet! Stop saying my name! Oh my god, we were having sex last night and look how you treated me today. Y-You humiliated me by acting like I’m only your tutor!”
“Violet please, cal—”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! You humiliated me out there. You’re a user and everything my friends warned me about. Did I listen? No!”
His hands dig deep into his pockets. “I never said I was perfect.”
“No, you said you were an asshole and a douchebag and a shitty boyfriend and I should have listened. I’m the idiot here for letting you lead me around. Me.”
“I’m glad you didn’t listen.”
A laugh begins in my abs, rises through my chest, and escapes my lips. “Oh, I’m sure! You’re so glad I was dumb enough to ignore the warning signs!”
“Are you mocking me?” His eyes narrow. “I’m being serious.”
“Oh please. If this is how you treat someone you’re glad to have around, I shudder to know what you’re like when you’re not.”
We stand warily regarding one another across the table; I seize the opportunity to size him up, drinking in the sight of him: tall, broody, and moody. So devastatingly handsome. Clear gray eyes. Heavy brows. Chiseled cheekbones and defined, masculine jaw covered in five o’clock shadow.
Beautiful. A poet’s dream.
He might have acted like he didn’t care but…
It’s his eyes that give him away. They’re remarkable, yes, but forlorn. Serious but sad. Lonely.
That doesn’t make it better, doesn’t make his callous behavior right.
“What in the world do you have to be so mad about, Zeke?” I whisper into the room, more to the walls than to him, knowing he won’t answer. “You’re surrounded by amazing people. Why are you the only one that doesn’t see that?”
He braces those giant palms on the table, leaning toward me. “You want to analyze me now? Go right ahead.”
He’s pushing back, and he’s also giving me a small opening to talk—one I intend to seize.
“You have everything you could possibly want; why do you push people away?”
He scoffs, snorting through his nose. “I’m not getting into this with you—I hardly know you.”
Yet his feet are rooted to the ground, hands anchored to the table.
“That’s not true. You do know me,” I whisper. “Sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself.”
He’s never had to say it with words; Zeke Daniels gets me. Looks past all my imperfections and sees that deep down inside, we’re kindred.
We bear similar scars.
“Fine. Maybe I do,” he concedes, one brick of his wall coming down. “You want to talk? We’ll talk.”
I suck in a breath, afraid to move lest I push him away, like spooking a wild animal I’ve finally convinced to eat from my palm.
“Everyone chooses to leave,” he begins, the low baritone of his voice reverberating down my spine. “When my parents started their company, my mom’s plan was to travel the world once they made their money. She wanted to ‘see things’, made list after list of places she wanted to go, things she wanted to see, and at first she would take me with her, right? I was only five when my dad sold his first software program. But you know, I was kind of a little asshole when I was little, so hauling me along became too difficult. It wasn’t fun for her anymore. Having me along was work, because I didn’t listen.” He shrugs. “Because I was only fucking five.”
“The more money they made, the higher maintenance and more demanding my mom became. Everything had to be perfect. Everything had to be expensive. When it wasn’t convenient to drag me to France, they’d leave me with aunts and uncles and my dick of a cousin.”
I listen silently as he begins opening up, words halted but constant. “My mom’s sister was…not loving.”
A stormy shadow crosses his eyes as he recalls his aunt from whatever memory category he’s compartmentalized her in.
My heart skips a beat. “Did they hurt you, Zeke?”
A bitter laugh. “No. They did nothing.”
“What do you mean they did nothing?”
I want to put my hands on him—touch him—but I don’t.
Can’t.
The energy in the room grows.
“My aunt and uncle took me in for money; my parents sent them a shit ton every month so I was out of their way, so my mom could do whatever the fuck she wanted, when she wanted. It was all about money, a glorified foster care system.”
It’s starting to make sense.
The bets. The charity. Giving his parents’ money away.
The anger and resentment.
Zeke Daniels feels abandoned by his family.
“My parents chose work and travel. My aunt and uncle chose money. Oz is choosing Jameson.” His low voice rumbles, spitting the words out. “Everyone has a choice.”
And no one chooses me.
The unspoken words hang between us, heavy and thick like a downdraft, like a noose around the column of his long, thick neck.
Slowly, I move around the table.
Slowly still, my fingers feel for his forearm, the tips brushing his wrist. “Zeke, I—”
His reflexes are quick, capturing my hand in his bear-like paw. “Don’t, Violet. Don’t try to make me feel better. Don’t feel sorry for me.”
“Maybe I don’t feel sorry for you. Maybe I feel something else.”
Compassion.
Empathy.
A connection.
Love.
“I can tell by the fucking expression on your face you feel sorry for me. Knock that shit off because this isn’t a pity party, Violet. You know, when I came to college, I thought the team was going to be the family I needed. I couldn’t wait to get out of my aunt’s fucking house. Couldn’t. Wait. If they had colleges on the moon, I would have applied there.”