She smiles at me again, and I’m thinking seriously about smashing my glass over her stupid head.
“I think we’re getting off to the wrong foot here,” she says. “After all, I was rooting for you. I just don’t like that Dane thinks he just gets to up and abandon me in the process.”
“What did you expect?” I ask. “Did you think he’d just start seeing me and not bother breaking up with you?”
“Oh, we weren’t in a relationship,” she says. “Not really. It doesn’t matter. What we did have was the kind of thing a person only finds a few times in a lifetime if they’re lucky.”
“And what was that?” I ask.
“A sexual relationship that didn’t bore me after a couple of weeks,” she answers. “I get that you two are all googly-eyed or whatever, but that’s not what makes a relationship last.”
“Oh? And what, oh great love guru, does make a relationship last?” I mock.
“Fucking sexual compatibility,” she says. “Finding someone that knows exactly how to get you off—that’s what makes a relationship last. It’s not something that a person just has with everyone. It’s like emotional compatibility, only less full of the lies and nonsense and all the bullshit expectations. Sex is honest. Emotions are the fucking lies.”
“I’ll take that under consideration,” I tell her, “but for now, I’d appreciate it if you’d get the hell away from me.”
She holds up her hands, palms toward me.
“Calm down,” she says. “I’m not here to ruin your evening.”
“Bye.”
She finally stops trying to teach me what’s really important in life and walks away.
As for me, I’m fuming as I down the rest of my drink. I think about ordering another, but really can’t see the point. Knowing me, I’ll just end up doing something embarrassing and tomorrow I’ll be twice as upset about everything as I am now.
When Dane walks over, I try to be attentive, to seem interested, but that redheaded idiot has succeeded in ruining my mood.
He asks me what’s wrong, but I’d just as soon forget that beast ever walked in here. I just tell him that I’m not feeling so well and ask if we can do this another time.
I’m not mad at him, though, even though that would make my life a little easier in the extreme short-term. Wrigley made it pretty clear that the two of them are no longer seeing one another, and that’s really all I need to know about it.
Still, I’m not about to forgive her for ruining what was supposed to be a fantastic evening.
He takes me home, and I tell him that I just need some sleep.
I don’t close my eyes longer than a blink all night.
Chapter Eighteen
Borders
Dane
So, last night was a bust.
I don’t know what happened, but I’m pretty confident it didn’t have anything to do with Leila suddenly becoming ill. For now, though, I’ll just let it slide.
She’s already off to work by the time I come out of my room—I should really ask her whether she thinks we really need to sleep in separate rooms. With as close as we’ve been over the last few days, it doesn’t make much sense to create that artificial barrier.
C’est la vie.
I shower and shave and perform the rest of my morning ablutions. I’ve been doing the purchasing, but today Wilks loses his training wheels.
I’ve done my best to get him good and nervous for haggling with suppliers, but in reality, so long as he can put on a smile and chat without making a total ass of himself, there’s really nothing to worry about. I’ve already put in a good word with some of my favored suppliers, so today should go pretty smoothly.
I give Wil