you seem a tad stressed out lately.” She made another face and reached out to close the laptop. “I was actually thinking about going out and getting a drink tonight. I need one.” She didn’t say she felt that way after butting heads with Jeno all day on set, but I could read between the lines.
I chuckled and clicked my phone open to send a text to Salinger, asking if he wanted to have dinner together. “Go ahead. I can get to the set on my own in the morning.” I was secretly hoping I could figure out a way to invite myself over for a sleepover at Salinger’s without coming across as needy or desperate. I honestly wanted him to want me badly enough to ask me to stay, but I was aware I made my boundaries abundantly clear and he was doing his best not to cross them. I was going to figure out how to lower them enough to let him in without losing myself in the process.
“All right. Just let me know if you need anything.” She looked down at her phone as she started Googling places nearby that might suit her taste. We’d rented a cute little townhouse in a gated community close to downtown Vancouver for the month. It was within walking distance to pretty much anything we might need, plus all the cool restaurants and bars. It was also only a short drive to the waterfront and the skyscraper complex where Salinger and Jeno were staying.
My phone pinged with a message. I frowned when I saw that Salinger texted back that he’d already had something to eat.
~ Be safe and make good choices. You let me know if you need anything as well.
The words sort of trailed off as I stared at the innocuous message with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I was bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, and I hated it. I was the one who reined him in, so I had no place being irritated by his behavior. But I really did want him to break free and be as persistent and pushy about how he felt about me like he had when he hijacked my flight not that long ago.
~ Let’s talk.
I let out a breath as I sent the message. If he denied me the chance to tell him what I was thinking and to apologize for pushing him away out of self-preservation, I was going to lose my mind. So far, he’d been pretty good about expressing himself and letting me know where he stood, but I hadn’t done the same. I was always playing things close to the vest because I didn’t want him to know the more time we spent together, and the more I got to know who he was, the more I liked him.
I really liked him.
And I knew it could be something more than that if I let my emotions run wild.
I was scared. Of him. Of how I felt. Of the future.
But I’d never been the kind of woman who let fear hold me back. If I was, I would be sitting in a beige, boring office somewhere doing someone else’s taxes and living a totally unfulfilled life.
It took longer than five minutes, but I was finally able to breathe normally when he messaged back,
~ Sure. Want me to come over to your place? Jeno is in a shitty mood tonight and decided to tear our apartment apart for a sobriety check. It’s a mess over here. There’s stuff everywhere.
My immediate reaction was to tell him ‘yes’ he should come to me. But that’s what I’d been making him do from the start. In the short time since we’d started fooling around, I had yet to stay at his place, even though it was very nice and had better security than mine. It was far from a tacky bachelor pad. But at some point, I convinced myself as long as I kept him and our relationship strictly on my turf, I could control every single aspect of it, which was woefully unfair to Salinger. He’d been so good to me, and I was still subconsciously treating him like he was an unpredictable kid who might take me down with him at any minute. If I really wanted to make things clear with him and get us on somewhat even footing, I needed to take a few steps in his direction, rather than having him chase me to Hell and back.