didn’t leave. You kicked my ass out and told me not to come back until I made the changes in my life that you required,” he returned.
All right.
Damn.
Just…
Damn.
He was holding me, but I’d seen enough of them, what with my mom and Rob going at each other all the time.
I knew what a lovers’ quarrel looked like.
And this conversation had suddenly morphed into that.
I didn’t like it when Mom and Rob did it.
But I really didn’t feel like being an innocent bystander during one that involved a guy I was falling for and had a strong suspicion I could spend the rest of my life with.
I started to shift away to give them some privacy and at the same time reevaluate my own circumstances, which might require me buying stock in Kleenex before I moved in with Tex, but I got nowhere as Mag’s arm around my shoulders clamped so hard, a smidge harder and there’d be pain.
“Mag, it’s for our future,” she retorted.
“Nik, honest to fuck, can you be standing right there lookin’ at me as I am right now and think we have a future?” Mag returned.
“It’s for the best,” she shot back.
“It was for your best,” he volleyed.
“It’s for our best,” she rejoined.
God.
I really did not want to be standing right here.
“I was done havin’ this conversation months ago, I can say without doubt I’m seriously done havin’ it now,” he told her.
“It isn’t done until it’s done,” she stated.
“By that you mean, it isn’t done until you get what you want,” he translated.
I wondered if I closed my eyes, held my breath and concentrated hard enough, if I’d become invisible so I could spirit away.
Second choice, spontaneously combust.
“By that I mean, we aren’t done,” she fired back.
Oh God.
I looked to the floor and kept my eyes there, especially after I felt Mag go completely still.
I knew what that meant.
And as it meant what it meant, why wouldn’t he let me go?
I wouldn’t make a fuss.
I wouldn’t cause a scene.
Okay, so, he was the nicest guy I’d ever met, he was great in bed, he was funny, he thought I was pretty, he liked John Wick and Metallica, and he took a bullet for me.
All huge positives in brand-new boyfriend material.
So, sure, we’d known each other all of five days, but I still knew I’d grieve his loss longer and harder than I did my ex-boyfriend who’d been in my life over two years.
But he’d loved this woman. He’d wanted a life with her.
So, if that would make him happy, and he had a shot at getting that back, I wasn’t going to insert myself into that.
I was, however, definitely buying stock in Kleenex.
“Nik, fuck, I…” Mag started quietly.
I tried to carefully pull away.
He held tight.
Why wouldn’t he let me go?
“That’s why you’re here,” he kept talking quietly. “Whoever told you I got injured told you about Evie.”
She did not confirm this.
Though I’d figured that out around the pissing-on-her-patch part of the conversation.
He continued speaking.
“Babe, we’re done. It doesn’t matter what got us there, it’s over. I’ve moved on.”
I stopped pulling and blinked at the floor.
“Mag—” she began.
“Don’t,” he cautioned.
“You’ve said that before,” she told him.
Hmm.
“I haven’t.”
Hmm!
“Well, you have said you’re not someone to quit on something you believe in,” she retorted.
I figured that was the truth.
“Nik, really, don’t. Let’s end this here.”
Okay, now I didn’t want to be standing there for a different reason.
“Mag—”
“Honestly, what’s done is done. You should move on too,” he advised.
She shared her own advice.
“Well, then I should warn you, if I do, I won’t be available when you come crawling back.”
“Okay,” Mag stated, but it wasn’t in agreement to what she’d said. I could tell he was gearing up to deliver more, and his tone was strange.
So strange, I tipped my head back to look up at him.
And I saw from his profile his expression was also strange.
There was pain.
Not pain pain.
The kind you get when you really didn’t want to say something that was going to hurt somebody, but you didn’t have a choice.
This being why he’d swayed from the door.
He knew there was a possibility she’d see me, and he’d eventually be pressed into the position he was in right now.
This made me ridiculously happy at the same time my heart was now going out to Mag.
I opened my mouth to offer my own advice, that being leave what he was about to say unsaid, invite her departure again, and let his future actions speak his words.