Dancing Away With My Heart (Wishful 12)
His words and that oh-so-serious expression dashed her arousal. She curled her fingers around the doorknob, as if it could anchor her. “Can’t it wait? I’m tired.” And that was the absolute truth. She was so, so exhausted from fighting this internal war with herself over him.
“No, I don’t think it can. It’s waited ten years, and I think that’s more than long enough.”
With creeping dread, she held tighter to the door as her mouth went dry. “What’s waited ten years?”
But he was still staring at the dress. “I thought you weren’t going to the reunion.”
“I’m not.” The words fell from her lips automatically, as if she hadn’t just made a new plan. Because she had a hideous suspicion where this was headed and she didn’t know how to stop it.
“Then what is this?” He waved a hand encompassing her appearance.
“Just a dress Mom let out for me. I was seeing if it fit.”
“It looks absolutely made for you.”
“It should. It was.” As soon as the words tumbled out of her mouth, Lexi wished them back.
The lust was gone when he lifted his eyes to hers. And there it was. That potent mix of accusation, betrayal, and confusion, all wiping out the attraction that had so recently warmed her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t I tell you what?” But the words were an empty delay tactic. She knew what.
“That this was for prom. That when you asked me, you were serious.”
She wished the floor would just open up and swallow her so they didn’t have to have this conversation. She hadn’t ever wanted to have this conversation. So she said nothing, just squeezed the living daylights out of the doorknob and tried not to shake.
“Why did you let me think you’d been joking?”
Lexi closed her eyes, her chest clamping so tight she could barely breathe. The secret she’d held so close, spent all this time and effort to protect, sacrificed the better part of their friendship to keep hidden, had been ripped away and laid bare. The fragile, new dream she’d just spun shattered into dust, and her nascent hope that things could be different this time died a swift death. He’d ruined all of it by finally figuring this out. Now. When it was so far beyond too late.
“Why, Lexi?”
Knowing silence couldn’t be her only response, she opened her eyes and jerked her shoulders, fighting for a tone of no-big-deal and failing. “You said it first. What was I supposed to say?”
“Something along the lines of ‘Hey dumbass, you already agreed to be my date first.’”
“And ruin Isabelle’s prom?”
“Isabelle didn’t matter. You did. You do.”
The earnestness in his tone lit a flame inside her, burning through her mortification to ignite temper. If he was going to push this, then by damn, she was going to finally, finally be honest about how much he’d hurt her.
“How can you expect me to believe that? The very idea of going on an actual date with me was so far fetched it had to be a joke to you.” Saying it out loud was like wrenching open a door that had been jammed, not quite shut, for years. All the pain and humiliation that had leaked out at a trickle suddenly crashed over her in a wave, leaving her feeling exposed and raw.
Zach’s face was stricken. “Lex, I—It wasn’t like that. I didn’t mean…”
“It doesn’t matter what you intended.” She was tired of this. Oh, so tired. Of the lies and the pretending, and the fighting with herself. “On purpose or not, you hurt me.” Unable to watch the pity come into his eyes, she fixed her gaze somewhere around his left ear. “And now I need you to go.”
“Go? But we’re not finished wi—”
“We are finished. I can’t do this anymore. I’ll finish editing my shots for the wedding and send them. Then I’m going back to Austin.”
She started to shut the door, but he shoved his foot over the threshold, his eyes panicked. “You can’t just leave like this.”
“I can, and I will. I’m done. I’m just done. Go home, Zach.”
Forcefully nudging his foot back, she shut the door in his face.
“Shit, dude. That’s bad.” Leo punctuated the statement by finishing off the beer he’d been nursing while Zach spilled out the whole, sorry tale.