Stuck With Me - Melissa Brown Page 0,3
of bed. You haven’t even packed yet.”
“Neither have you.”
Silence.
Shit.
That silence woke me up. I rolled over to stare at her beautiful face, but a sense of dread built in my gut. I knew this wasn’t going to end well.
“Okay, now you have my attention.”
“I can’t go.” She bit down on her bottom lip—her attempt to seem distraught, conflicted. But I knew better.
I sighed loudly, pressing my hand to my forehead and closing my eyes. “Trupti…”
“I just can’t. I’m sorry.” Her tone was cold. “I have too much work to do. It’s a bad time for me to go away.”
“We’ve been over this. C’mon, Peter and Scott promised to play nice. And your office isn’t even open until January third.”
“Yeah, well, I’m just not comfortable. You need to respect that, okay? And I do have work to do—I’ll just work from home.”
We both knew she had zero work to do. But that was beside the point. Trupti and I had been sleeping together for about nine months or so. At first, it was a secret. My friends had dealt with my anger and douchebag resentment for more than a year after she broke my heart. I finally told them a few months ago, and they weren’t happy. Not at all. But they promised to be civil. Trupti had shied away from seeing them in any capacity—skipping Peter and his girlfriend Maren’s housewarming party, football potlucks, and the Friendsgiving dinner Scott and his wife, Allison, hosted at their place last month. There was always a reason, always a last minute excuse for her ducking out. And it was getting old. Really old.
And I was just about at the end of my rope.
“When is this all gonna end?”
“What?”
“Avoiding my friends.” I wasn’t going to hide the irritation in my voice anymore. I’d had enough.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe when you tell your family that I’m back in your life.” Her words were covered in resentment. But I wasn’t having it. She’d put my family and me through too much, and my memory was too long to allow her to be the resentful one.
My family still didn’t know I was seeing her again. I was worried that if Trupti came near my mom, it might give her a heart attack. My friends helped me deal with my anger, but Mom nursed me through my depression, my sadness, my sullen outlook on life in general. And I know it weighed on her. She spent months reassuring me that love was still possible, that I would find my match one day. If she knew I’d gone back to Trup, it would break her heart. I couldn’t do that to Mom until I knew we were serious, that Trupti and I were both in this for the long haul. And in times like this, I wasn’t confident my mom would ever know.
Or if I was honest, that I wanted her to know.
I shook my head and rolled my eyes, letting Trupti know I wasn’t playing into her trap. “Walk before you run, Trup.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“None of this is real until you can brave my friends. That’s what I mean.”
“Your family means more to me than your friends, Dev.”
“Then it should be easy, shouldn’t it? If they don’t mean as much, you don’t have as much riding on it. C’mon, it’s just four days.”
“Four days with no escape and nothing but hanging out with your friends. I can’t exactly leave the resort, now can I?”
“Why not? We’ll have my car. You can go wherever the hell you want.”
“That’s not the point, and you know it. I’m a terrible skier. You and I both know I’ll end up waiting in the lodge most of the time anyway.”
“Allison doesn’t ski either. You can hang with her.”
“Lovely.”
“Allison is nice.”
“Allison hates me. How do you expect me to ‘brave your friends’ if you’re in denial about how they actually feel about me? About us?”
I sat up, placing a hand on her hip. She was wearing my favorite Yeezus T-shirt. “Rip off the band-aid, Trup. Come on… I want you there, isn’t that enough?”
Trupti rolled to her back and stared up at the ceiling, placing her hand on her belly. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Ugh, stop being such a goddamn drama queen.” I climbed out of bed and walked to my bathroom, pressing my hand into the doorframe. “So, who am I gonna kiss at midnight, huh?”
She sat up and glared at me. “Seriously, that’s what you’re worried about?”
“Well, I mean…yeah,