I ignore the pounding in my head. I ignore the way my heart is about to burst out of my chest. I ignore the pain coursing through me while I walk to the cabinet and take the bottle of scotch out. I unscrew the top and take the longest gulp of my life. The burning is all the way down my chest. I put the bottle down and place my hands on the counter, making my head hang. "What the fuck?" I say to myself as soon as I hear a knock on the door.
I think about not answering, but my feet move faster than my brain. I open the door, and there she is, standing there. "It's not what it looks like," she says, her eyes filled with tears.
"It doesn't matter," I reply, shaking my head. Instead, I feel like I'm being drowned. Like someone is pushing my head underwater, and I can't come up. "You said that you didn't want this." I point at her and to myself.
"I never said that," she snaps and takes a step toward me, but I move back, and she stops moving. Her hand trembles, and I hate that I did this to her. Hate that my words hurt her like that. "I said that I didn't think it was a good idea for you to take me out on a date." I raise my eyebrows. "It is not what it looked like."
"At the end of the day, you said that you wanted to keep this a secret." I put it in my own words. "By you not wanting me to take you out on a date, that meant you wanted to be a secret."
"It's not that, I just . . ." She wipes away a tear, and if my heart didn't feel broken before, it does now. "I can't." I hold my hand up.
"I was cheated on and lied to." The words come out with no emotion in my voice. "And I'm not going to do that anymore." I swallow down the lump in my throat. "I'm sorry." I close the door in her face. My hand is still on the handle as my head falls forward. I close my eyes, listening to her car door slam before turning back and heading to the bottle of scotch.
Chapter 30
Shelby
The door slams in my face, and all I can do is stand here stunned. To be honest, I don't blame him one bit. I tell him I can't date him, and the next minute, I'm walking out of the pub with a guy. The minute Sergio said the word date, I knew this was not going to end well.
When I called his name, and he ignored me, I knew that he was hurt. Fuck, if the roles were reversed, I would have kicked him in the balls and turned away. The whole time over to his house, all I could see was the look on his face. The look of hurt, but then he masked it for me not to see it, but when he swung the door open, there was no denying what that look was. It was heartbreaking to see. It broke me knowing that I'm the one who caused this.
I get in the car, and the rage rips through me. "Fuck!" I shout, and my car pulls up to the house. I get out of the car, not even bothering to turn it off because I'm not going to be here long. I stomp up the steps and press the bell, and the whole time, the hurt in me turns to anger.
I hear footsteps come closer to the door, and I stand tall. He opens the door. "Shelby," he says, shocked and surprised.
"Why did you do it?" I ask the question that I asked all night long. "Why cheat on me?"
He puffs out, shocking me. "Please, like you give a shit," he hisses, and I'm the one shocked. "How was our honeymoon?" His head advances. "With Ace," he sneers. I'm about to answer him, but he doesn't stop there. "Bet you enjoyed it with him better, didn't you?" I take a second to listen to his words. "Why can't you be more like Ace?" he mimics what I said to him once. "Why can't you support me the way Ace does?" His voice starts to go higher, and I laugh.
"I'm sorry, what?" I put my hand to my head, shaking it. "You're jealous." It all makes sense now. "You're jealous of Ace."
"Why, because he makes more money than me?" The venom coming out of his mouth . . . I'm shocked that I never saw it. He never ever showed me this side of him. "Why, because he got his dream job, and I have to kiss everyone's ass to succeed?" He stands up straight. "He may have all those things, but what I have is charm." I want to laugh at him. "I fucked every single one of his girlfriends from high school to college to you and then to Sheila. You know why, because I could and because I'm better than him."