“Matt stop. Just…stop.” Bending, I placed the puppy back on the floor, the newspaper crinkling under his paws.
“Don’t,” Matt said, sighing heavily. The dog skittered to the other side of the room, sniffing around the washing machine. “Don’t say what I think you’re gonna say.”
“Something’s going on with you, Matt. I don’t know what or why you’re hiding it, but I need some space while you figure it out.”
“But…the puppy…”
“Isn’t enough to keep me here.”
“But I love you!” The pain in his voice resonated in my chest, crushing my heart, destroying my soul.
“Not enough to be honest with me.”
I turned on my heels and padded through the house to the front doors, deciding I’d call my doctor and say I’d misplaced my meds and needed an urgent replacement.
“Alex wait!” Matt called, catching up with me. “Please don’t do this. I…I’ll tell you everything.”
Turning briefly, my heart breaking, I whispered under my breath, “If you cared, you would’ve already.”
And then I left, my heart heavy and my legs weak as they struggled to carry me to my car. Tears pricked at my eyes, stinging them like salt in a wound, as I twisted the key in the ignition.
How the hell did we get here?
Chapter Twelve
~Matt~
WHEN ALEX WALKED out on me I spent three days lying on the couch, eating cereal drowning in sugar, and cleaning up dog pee. I drove to the club on the first day but turned straight around when I saw Alex’s car in the lot. I’d never been in a relationship before, not one that compared to what I had with Alex, not one where I actually understood what it meant, what it felt to love and be loved, so ending one was new for me too.
Is that even what’s happened? Are we over? Have I lost him?
All I knew for certain is that I felt miserable. Fuck miserable, I was devastated, and it was all my own fucking fault. My initial instinct was to get wasted, but for the first time in my life I didn’t feel any desire to go out and hammer all my problems into a random chick’s pussy.
That kind of reaction was what got me into this mess in the first place.
It was late afternoon, I think, when I heard an entrance alert on the security monitor. I’d been rotting on the couch for so long, the nameless puppy warming my feet, I couldn’t be sure what day it was never mind the time. I didn’t bother to get up to see who it was. If they wanted me, they’d find me.
“I’m beginning to feel like Dr. fucking Phil.” I looked briefly up at Sawyer and then went back to staring at the ceiling. The pasta shell fell off weeks ago but had left a stain. “How many times am I going to have to play Agony Aunt before you two yank your stupid heads outta your asses and communicate with each other instead of running off and sulking like teenage boys.”
I didn’t know how he knew and I didn’t have the energy to care. “I’ve fucked up, Saw. I’ve lost him.”
“You haven’t lost him,” he said, exasperated as he sank down into the reclining chair.
Swinging my legs onto the floor, accidentally knocking the dog off the couch in the process, I sat up. “You’ve talked to him?”
“I didn’t need to. His face was enough.”
Sighing, I lay back down. “Then you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know you love each other.”
“He doesn’t trust me, and I don’t blame him. You know the funniest part is that I always knew I’d fuck it up. I just didn’t realize it would hurt so fucking much.”
“Jesus, Matt. What the hell have you done? Have you cheated on him?” he asked, skepticism coating his words.
“No! I could never do that to him. But…I have lied to him.”
“About what?” he pressed, screwing his face up in confusion.
“Remember that chick you found me with in the bathroom? The night Alex told me about the HIV?”
Sawyer narrowed his eyebrows. “Yeah,” he said, elongating the word.
“She told me she was called Precious, turns out her name is Mindy…and she’s pregnant.”
Sawyer shook his head as if trying to unscramble his thoughts. “Fucking hell, man, you said you didn’t sleep with her!”
“I didn’t. I couldn’t. But she snapped a photo of me eating her tits and promised to expose me to the press as the man that abandoned her and his child if I didn’t give her money.”
“You didn’t. Please tell me you haven’t given her any money.”
“Twenty grand so far.”
“Why, Matt? What the…why?”
“Because I’m a fucking idiot. I don’t give a monkey’s ass if she sells her story. I did it for Alex. If he knew I’d jumped on another chick the second things got tough…” I trailed off, my fingers twitching to punch myself in my pathetic fucking face.