After a minute, she nodded, looking disappointed. “That’s what I thought.”
“I told you it’s still complicated. I told you that,” he implored.
“Everything between us has always been complicated, Ethan. It’s whatever. Not like we’re dating anyway, so….”
“It’s not that I don’t… want to. With our past, Willow… and you’re 18.”
Bestowing a more withering glare on him than the one she gave him in the bedroom, she said, “Don’t you bring my fucking age into this. I’m almost 19, but I’m pretty sure I’m being remarkably understandable for my age—or any age. You go find a fucking 30-year-old who’s willing to hide in your bedroom while you visit with your wife and kids in the other room. Don’t be an asshole.” Jerking her arm free from his grasp, she exited his apartment and rushed out to her car, make it perfectly clear that she didn’t want him to follow her.
---
Knowing how Willow tended to check out when she was pissed off at him, Ethan did not wait for her to text him.
Ethan thought about it after she left; he knew their situation wasn’t fair to Willow, and even though they weren’t together, he knew there was an asterisk attached. There always would be with them, even if they were never more than friends again.
When the thought occurred to him, he was also honest enough with himself to admit he couldn’t see that happening. He couldn’t even imagine never being with her again in some way. As odd as it was, since she reappeared in his life so recently, he had a hard time seeing his future without Willow attached, even if it was just hanging out on his couch watching bad movies and pretending they didn’t want to be more than platonic friends.
Normally he didn’t mind Willow’s little games—they were harmless enough—but he didn’t want to go another week or two without speaking to her if it could be helped.
He was fucking sick of missing her.
"I'm sorry for being an asshole. You have been remarkably patient with me. My life is a mess right now. I'm sorry that any kind of relationship with me is so complicated. You're very important to me and I'm sorry if I made you feel like you aren't."
He typed and retyped the message several times before sending it. It seemed like a message she would respond to, but it had been nearly an hour and he hadn't heard back.
The wife of some douchebag he was supposed to be catching in the act had just alerted him that her husband was going to meet the other woman. Putting on his detective hat, Ethan gathered up his supplies and headed out to distract himself with someone else's fuck-ups for a little while.
Since he had to wait, he took the opportunity to check Willow’s profiles online. It had been ages since he’d done that, and the old familiar feeling of her special brand of torture came back when he saw the picture she’d posted twenty minutes earlier: Willow with some guy, his arm draped casually over her shoulder on a brown couch, both of them smiling brightly at the camera. Brian McAvoy was tagged in the picture, but a click to check out his profile was pointless, since he was apparently smart enough to make it private.
Oh well, he could always check into him when he got home.
Bastard.
Closing out the window, he opened up the text messages—she had read the first one a few minutes ago, but no response.
“I hope you’re only ignoring me because you’re sitting next to your boyfriend right now. (I hate that, by the way.)”
He debated not sending another one just yet, but he also assumed that picture had been posted for his benefit, and he wasn’t in the mood to waste time; he wanted her to know she had gotten her point across.
His phone vibrated, and the new message read simply, “Good” and was accompanied by a smiley face.
Smiling a little reluctantly, he shook his head. At least when Willow struck out in spite, it was always brief and a direct reaction to some fuck-up of his. He wondered if she toyed with other guys the same way—punished them when they pissed her off. It was strange—and unpleasant—to think of Willow acting the same way with someone else, but he wasn’t naïve enough to assume he was special.
He wondered how many of her male friends disliked the picture of the happy couple as much as he did.
He wondered if she would still do things like that if they were together.
More than that, he wondered how the hell he could ever be in an actual relationship with Willow long enough to find out. Her parents wanted his head on a spike, and Amanda would want his balls on a platter.
Sighing as he raked a hand across his face, he told himself to stop thinking about it. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t be with Willow, because she was already with someone else. Not that the messy-haired frat boy in the picture was likely to hold onto Willow, but there would be someone else who could offer her an actual relationship and who would never dream of making her hide in his bedroom.
Willow deserved a whole relationship, not a half-assed attempt at one.
Another text from Willow pulled him from his thoughts, but that one was a picture message. The crotch of his pants suddenly grew tighter as he looked down at a picture of Willow in a mirror, playfully throwing a kiss at the camera—stripped down to a black lace bra with a matching black lace thong.
“Have a good night,” her accompanying message read, with a winking face.
Without bothering to think it through, he typed, “Come back over.”