Upside Down (Breaking the Rules #3) - A.M. Madden Page 0,37
she got. “You don’t mind, do you, Ricky?” she asked all innocent and clueless.
I’m going to kill her.
Weirdly enough, Cooper remained silent. Was this his idea? Did he want to speak to me in private? Apologize? Doubtful, since he had no idea that I’d heard him. Maybe he realized something and wanted to discuss it with me? Maybe… the situation was just what I needed to tell him to have a nice life?
Recalibrating my bruised ego, I flashed a saccharin smile. “Not at all.”
“Great.” Her eyes pleaded, “Don’t kill me,” as she placed a hand on Cooper’s leg. “I promise we’ll reschedule once Antonio feels better.”
“No worries,” he said with his eyes pinned on me.
Every pace I made back and forth across the paver-stone walkway caused my ire to worsen. Cooper was changing his clothes, and I needed to release my pent-up hostility.
By the time he appeared, in a pale-green button-down shirt that enhanced his eyes, and a pair of casual khakis that enhanced his long legs, I was good and worked up.
“We don’t have to do this,” he said the moment he closed their front door behind him. “I can go grab something to eat alone.”
“You’re right; we don’t.” I stalked toward my car. “But knowing your sister, she’ll call the restaurant, checking to be sure we’re there… and we do need to talk.” After clicking my key fob, I barked, “Get in.”
Luckily he remained silent during the six-minute ride to Simply Thai, during the four minutes we needed to wait as our table was prepared, and during the twelve minutes it took to greet our waitress, decide on our meals, and order.
No sooner had she walked away with the menus than I folded my arms and asked, “So I’m a prick?”
The color instantly drained from his face. “What?”
“You can’t identify as being a pansexual because I’m a prick… as in dickhead, asshole, public enemy number one. Any apply, right?”
His eyes widened the moment my point hit home, until a sly smirk lifted one corner of his sexy-as-fuck mouth. “Did you hear the rest of it?” he had the audacity to ask.
“No, hearing that was enough to confirm my stance that you have serious issues.”
“I do,” he easily admitted. When his eyes drilled through mine, I guessed just as he had deflected his denials by insulting me, he now tried to deflect his frustrations by patronizing me. Screw that. It ended now.
Ignoring his consent, I rambled on. “Yes, I’m guilty of holding up a mirror and forcing yourself to look at the real you. Mind you, any truths I revealed are not on me. Regardless, I recognized what you were dealing with. To some degree, everyone ever questioning their sexuality deals with the same… including me. I felt for you. I sympathized with you. And I meant it when I said I was there for you if you needed to talk. But now I’m retracting that. Blame the prick in me, but I’m done.”
I tried to focus on my anger and not on how sexy as fuck he looked when he folded his arms while never breaking eye contact, but it wasn’t working.
“Dr. Lair rambled a bit more about the dangers of labeling, to which I listened politely, although I was no longer interested in his lecture.” That I knew. That I’d heard. “It didn’t take him long to pick up on my reluctance to open up any further, so he requested that I answer just one more question with the absolute truth.” The pause that came felt like an eternity. Regardless, I continued to mimic his stance and waited. “He asked me to forget all else and just answer one thing. What did I plan to do concerning my confusion?”
Again, I waited… silently, not making it any easier on him.
What he was about to admit had clearly rattled him. The evidence lay in the way he raked a hand through his hair, glanced away, and finally looked back with a pleading expression. One that squeezed my heart with a newfound compassion while kick-starting my heart rate. “I said that I honestly didn’t know, but I admitted I couldn’t stop thinking of you, and that needed to be addressed.”
Well, fuck.
“Addressed how?”
“By spending time with you.” An audible swallow drew my attention to his Adam’s apple before I lifted my gaze to his lips and then to his eyes. “I want to spend time with you, Ricky… and I hope you’ll let me.”