“Enough. I’m done.” Give me strength. I pointed my finger at him in a very hostile manner. “You, Ziggy Thayer, are frustrating and annoying and confusing and I don’t like you very much right now so you should leave and not come back for several days.”
“That so?”
“Yes, I…stop questioning everything.”
“How else am I going to find things out?”
I looked to heaven. Then I crossed my arms over my chest because even the flimsiest of defenses was better than nothing. “What things exactly do you need to find out? Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. Good night.”
He cocked his head, leveling me with that stare.
“What?”
“You’re allowed to ask questions and I’m not?”
“Oh my God,” I groaned. “How much blood exactly did you lose because honestly you’re kind of acting crazy?”
“Yeah, I know. You should probably make a complaint about me. Want me to fetch your cell so you can call Sam?”
“You think I won’t?”
“I honestly have no idea what you’re going to do, Mae.” He took a deep breath. “I had every intention of coming in here, checking you were fine, then leaving. That’s it.”
I shrugged. “So what happened?”
“Then you started talking. Then you got upset. And now…I don’t know.” There was no professional blank to his face now. If anything, the man seemed to be holding back an excess of emotion. His lips were a fine line, his brow furrowed. “This is the problem, whenever I’m around you, every rational thought goes straight out the damn window. I honestly don’t know if I’m coming or going.”
I gasped in outrage. “Me? What did I do?”
“Just walking around breathing and being you, mostly.”
“That makes absolutely no sense.”
“I know,” he said, voice resigned. “Funny you should say that thing about how frustrating and annoying and confusing I am. Because that’s exactly how I feel about you.”
“But I’m just a job to you. You shouldn’t have feelings for me.”
“Wish to hell I didn’t. It’d make things a fuck of a lot less complicated.”
I just stared.
“I like my life how it is,” he continued. “I’ve got work and family and friends. It’s all good. Maybe in five or ten years I’d be interested in marriage and kids, but not now. Let alone not with someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“That’s right.”
A fiery rage burned within. “Good news, Ziggy. I don’t recall either proposing to you or offering to bear your spawn. You’re free to go, buddy. The door’s right there. Don’t let it hit your ass on the way out!”
The man just smiled. Like I wasn’t about to attack him with my perfect French nail polish. Scour his face with lines and all the rest. What’s worse was, as soon as I saw his smile, my knees turned to water. Oh, man.
“Mae, I spend enough time dealing with photographers and fans at work. Of course I was wary of inviting that sort of thing into my private life,” he said. “However, it’s a part of your life and that’s good enough for me. But you should know, I’m never going to be able to buy you a Bentley or take you on a private jet to Paris. Often I have to work late or travel. No matter how much I want to, I’m not always going to be able to be with you. Can you accept that?”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“It’s pretty much the only thing I’ve been thinking about since I met you.”
And that was big. That was really big. Scarily huge, in fact.