The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

“You’re something.”

“I’m leaving, that’s what I’m doing.”

He threw his hands up. “It’s hard to tell, the amount of stuff you still have everywhere.”

Not fair. She was packed. Mostly. “You’ll get your precious condo back, and in a day or two you won’t even remember I was here.”

He came around the counter. “What’s going on with you? What did I miss?”

“You missed everything.” She let him come close. Let him take in her appearance, watched emotions move over his face: annoyance, confusion, impatience. “You missed out on your promotion, you skipped the opportunity in San Francisco for no good reason.” She went to her toes to get in his face. “You don’t have a new roommate. You had this with me, and it wasn’t enough for you.”

He made a grab for her and she skipped away. “How many chances at happiness do you think you get?”

“You’re trying to goad me into a fight. You want to end what we have this way because you don’t like goodbyes. That’s not happening. I’m not ending it with us shouting at each other.”

“You’re not ending it at all. You’re a passenger and I’m a detour and we’re at your stop. Time to get off the Flick Dalgetty ride.”

“Don’t do this.”

She went to the big glass door and looked out at the gathering night. She would miss this view, this apartment, this city. Tom’s wasn’t the only private call she’d had today. Mom called to ask Flick to pay a plumbing bill. She forgot to ask about Washington or wish Flick luck. She said Elsie was back with Dan and she and the girls had moved home. Lizzy’s hours had been cut because she ended the affair with her boss, and Dad’s back was worse. Bonus, there’d been a drive-by murder on their street.

Mom asked for money and she got it in exchange for agreeing to stick to the monthly budget Flick set. Tom had helped her see striking that deal was necessary. It was a straight transaction. Flick’s help to smooth out the cost of utilities and extraordinary expenses instead of milkshake-makers and other whims. There’d be no more guilt or arguments.

That’s what she needed from Tom now because finally negotiating fixed boundaries with Mom and promising herself she’d stick to them had cost her pride, and she didn’t have anything left inside to go through the heartbreak of two people who loved each other and needed to separate all over again.

“I can’t play nice anymore, I can’t do it. I can’t pretend we’re okay.” Her voice shook because she didn’t mean this fight to be so crushing. She’d said almost the same words to Mom, no longer willing to be ruled by resentment and ill-defined obligation.

With Tom, she’d wanted to keep on the edge of playful and mean, to jolt his sense of decency aside long enough to have him buy into the rawness of the sex fantasy, and she’d tipped over into a place of such private desolation the only thing she could do was fight her way back out.

In the reflection of the glass she could see him standing behind her. “What do you want from me? I tried to give you what I thought you needed. I’d give you anything,” he said.

“You just gave me the sugar coating, Tom. A cupcake. Hoped I wouldn’t notice it was empty calories or how bad it was for me.”

He put his hands to his head. “I’m not fighting with you.”

“You want to play the coupons out then?”

“Yes. That would be better than this, they kept us on track.”

She turned and put her back to the glass. “There are three left. I picked the one where you tear my clothes off before you fuck me.”

“I’m not fucking you in anger.”

“You’re not doing it any other way.” She would break in half if he was tender.

He moved in close. She wanted to lean into his touch, but that would only make it worse. “What do I have to do to make this right, Flick?”

“All you have to do is rip this.” She tugged at the front of the slip. “I made it easy for you, it’s torn already.”

“You’ve been leading me around by the nose since you got here, what’s one more excursion.” He reached his long arm out and took her shoulder, ran a finger under the strap of her slip.

She jerked her head up to eyeball him. “Leading you? Dragging you. You never had the guts to ask me for anything for yourself, to question the coin flip. We were a two-headed coin and you never saw the trick in the toss.”

With his big hand, he tugged on the strap of her slip and it tore away from the lace it was sewn into. “Stay.”

Like an instruction you’d give a dog. She couldn’t move if she had four legs, eight, ten. She was mesmerized by the expression on his face, lust and anger and pain, all the same things she felt.

He took the scalloped edge of the slip where the strap had torn and peeled it slowly down the slope of her breast until it popped free. He covered it with his hand and held firmly. “Stay. I’m asking. Flip the coin again. Stay. Don’t go. Stay. Give this time. No coupons, no deadlines, a relationship like a normal couple with no agenda.” He put his mouth to her neck and she gasped, trailed it wet and insistent over her collarbone and down to her nipple, where he fastened on and sucked, making her body sway and surge.