I spun around to face him, my own temper beginning to bubble and clashing with the nagging doubts in my brain. “So… what? You just finished work on Monday and decided to be in a shitty mood?”
“I said I’m sorry, okay? Can’t we just forget it?”
“I’ve been trying to but every day it’s the same thing. You’ve been coming home and acting weird, and it’s getting worse.” I rolled up my sleeve. Even though I hadn’t checked, I knew he’d marked me, and sure enough his fingers had left an imprint around my wrist. Stepping closer to him and thrusting my arm towards him, I said, “What the hell was this all about? You’ve never done anything like this before, so don’t tell me to forget it.”
His eyes fell on my marked skin then he looked back up at me. “I’m sorry,” he said again. His blue eyes glimmered with sadness and I blew out a slow breath.
“I don’t want apologies, baby. I want you to explain.”
“I can’t.” He let go of my h
and and turned away from me.
His reluctance to look at me only fuelled my worries. What could be bothering him so much that he wouldn’t look at me other than him cheating on me?
“Radleigh.”
I watched as his shoulders moved up and down, the tension building in them again. I wanted to go to him, to try and ease him out of whatever was causing his erratic behaviour, but equally I wanted to strangle him for being so difficult. My fight or flight instincts kicked in but the two battled with each other until I let out a growl of frustration.
And he still didn’t turn around.
“Are you seeing someone else?”
I asked the question in the hope of shocking a response out of him. I mean, if I was wrong, the suggestion would surely prompt a reaction, right? Slowly he turned to face me again and I took a step back as his eyes fully met mine.
“Really, Leah? You really think I’d do that?”
“I don’t know what to think. You won’t talk to me, you hardly even look at me and you’re flipping out over the smallest of things. If that’s not it, then what is it?”
“Dammit, Leah, just drop it!” he yelled as he stormed past me towards the door, and this time I was the one who grabbed for him. My fingers circled around his wrist and he glared at me. “Let go.”
“You need to stop this. If you’re not going to tell me what the problem is, then you need to stop acting like a fucking asshole. I don’t know what mood you’re going to be in from one minute to the next. You want to know why I was longer than I said I would be tonight? Because I wanted to be away from the weird silences for a while. And I’m not the only one who’s noticed it.”
Radleigh tugged his wrist from my grip, his eyes still fixed on mine. “Right. So you went out to talk about me with Freya and Miguel. Anyone else? Did you stop by Bryce’s place on the way back? Or how about Jesse? Maybe you went to see my parents, or maybe just my mom since you seem to run everything by her first these days.”
The venom in his voice would have made me step back but his words spat out that way only made my anger rise. Maybe this did have something to do with me going back to work, but that wasn’t all of it. Not by a long way.
“I’ve been trying to talk to you!” I snapped. “Don’t stand there and act like I’ve taken other routes on this. I’ve asked and asked, but you keep shooting me down! So yeah, I talked to Freya and Miguel about it.”
“And what was their expert advice?”
The sarcasm dripping from his voice made me want to punch him in the face, but that wasn’t nearly as hard to take as that damn glare, his eyes cold as ice.
“They told me not to stress over it, which seemed like good advice until you started acting like you own me!”
“That’s clearly not the case since you’re so busy doing anything you can to try and get out of this house and away from me and Jessica!”
This time I did step back, my body starting to shake with the unfairness of his words.
“That’s not fair and you know it. And if me working is the problem, then let’s talk about it.”
“You already made your decision!” he shouted, taking a step towards me.
“I told you about something I want to do! That’s not the same thing, and let’s not pretend that your shitty mood these last few days has been solely about this! Something was bothering you before I even mentioned it! What I got was an amazing weekend followed by you coming home from work on Monday as if something had happened. Even Bryce said your mood changed out of nowhere!”
“Bryce needs to keep his mouth shut! If I wanted to talk, I would!”
From across the hall, I heard Jessica start to cry, and my heart twisted at the realisation that our yelling had woken her. Blowing out another long breath to calm myself, I took a few steps towards the door.