blamed it on us being tired, and I was glad when we finally arrived back home.
“Would you like to come spend the rest of the evening with me before you go to bed?” I asked as I got Ira out of his seat.
He was fast asleep, and Rooney and I had to finish our talk.
She nodded after grabbing the basket with the eggs and the bag with the veggies out of the back.
“Yeah, of course,” she replied with a tired smile.
We walked upstairs and she helped me open the door so I wouldn’t struggle with Ira in my arms, and once he was tucked into bed, I walked out of his room to see Rooney standing in the kitchen drinking some water.
“I’ll get my bags later. Did you pack everything?” I asked.
She had put her bag outside my door to then bring upstairs once we were done talking.
“Yes. I told Mom if we forgot anything that she can just bring it whenever she comes to visit me.”
I nodded, leaning against the counter next to her and eyeing her face closely before deciding to continue our conversation we had two nights ago.
“Have you been thinking about my question?” I asked.
I sure did, and I wished I had asked her a different question, because mentioning it made her frown at me again.
“You asked me if I still see you as a friend or just someone I wanna have fun with, but there wasn’t a third option,” she said.
Valid point.
“Is that what made you upset?” I asked.
Her brows furrowed even more, silently telling me how much of an idiot I was.
“Right…sorry,” I said, sighing and running a hand through my hair.
“I should’ve been clearer about it.”
She nodded, studying me and crossing her arms loosely in front of her stomach.
Maybe it was too early to talk about this.
No, I should just rephrase my question.
“Do you still see me as a friend, or is there more that you feel for me?”
That question didn’t seem to be satisfying enough either, seeing as her body tensed before she answered.
“If there wouldn’t be more, I don’t think we would’ve gone as far as sleeping together. Or you letting Ira sleep with us in one bed for the weekend.”
“That’s true, but that’s not what I asked, Rooney.”
God, I was being a dick again, but all because I wanted to protect my heart from getting hurt.
Same fucking thing she probably was thinking.
“Why are you pushing me to answer that question when you clearly are unsure yourself?” she asked, trying to keep her voice low so Ira wouldn’t wake up.
“I’m not pushing you, Rooney. I’m trying to figure things out with you, and that only works if we talk and open up to each other.”
She had major issues regarding bottling up her feelings, which obviously wasn’t just her issue.
But my stubbornness wasn’t letting go of this.
“Why don’t you open up first then?”
I had never seen her this determined and frustrated, and it made me feel the same, knowing I was the one making her feel that way.
“Because I not only have myself to protect, but also Ira. He’s my life, and if you’re not willing to commit, which obviously is what you struggle with the most, then I’m not fucking ready to commit either.”
There.
That should’ve been enough to make her talk about how she saw things now.
She looked at me for a while and shook her head before letting out a laugh.
“But you’d be ready to just let me hang around him and fuck me whenever you want to without us ever being more than friends?”
Good fucking question, and I had no answer to that.
“Right, that’s what I thought,” she whispered after a few seconds of silence. “Maybe you should find out what you want first before pushing me to tell you things you wanna hear.”
Her eyes were watery, tears ready to roll down her cheeks.
I sighed, running my hand through my hair again. “Why are you saying this now, Rooney?”
“Because even if I’d say I wanted to be with you, you’d still be unsure about us.”
“So now I’m the problem?” I asked as she walked past me and down the hall to get to the front door.
I followed her, hoping I could stop her from leaving when we were still arguing.
“No, Wells,” she rasped, turning to me with her hand already on the door handle. “We’re both the problem, and if we don’t figure this out soon, we’ll break ourselves before we can break each other.”