“I’m not going to hit him,” I answered, outraged. “I’m a pacifist.”
He just nodded toward the two clenched fists sitting in my lap.
“Oh. We’re just talking. Civilly. Sort of.” Slowly, I stretched out my fingers, rubbing them against the legs of my black skinny jeans. “I’m a very nice person once you get to know me.”
“Of course you are, miss.”
“I’ve never hit anyone in my life.” I frowned. “Where was I?”
“Didn’t we already have this fight when you threw me out?” asked Adam, shoving a frustrated hand through his long hair. Which was seriously long, by the way. Nearing Rapunzel status. It didn’t look as if he’d cut it in forever.
I thought his question over, tapping a finger thoughtfully against my lips. “No. That was a different one. You’ve fucked up in multiple and unforeseen ways since then. It’s mind-blowing, really.”
He just sighed.
“You’d mentioned that Adam failed to pick up his shit, never paid for anything, and missed your birthday dinner,” supplied Mac in a cheerful tone. “Not much of a surprise that you kicked him out, if you ask me. He was asking for it.”
Adam slumped back in the seat with a groan. “Remind me why I pay you again, Mac?”
“You pay me to drive,” answered the chauffeur. “My opinions, however, are my own and thrown in for free. You’re welcome.”
“Great.”
“Honest to God, I gave him so many chances, Mac. You wouldn’t believe it.” I took a deep breath and refocused on the cause of all of my aggravation. “And here’s the bit that gets me. If I really was this great love of your life, Adam, the one that rocked you to your core, worthy of writing all of these horrendous yet strangely catchy tunes about, then why did you never tell me you loved me?”
At that, he froze in terror once more. If we hadn’t been speeding down a busy street, he might have made a move for the door, thrown himself out, and taken his chances with the oncoming traffic. The man looked that desperate.
“You’ve told every music journalist on the planet, it seems. Screamed it from the stage in every other song. Heck, the word even made the title of Lovestricken. But you never told me, not even once.” My eyes started to itch for some weird reason. Let’s not question why. “Why is that exactly?”
He pressed his lips into a tight line. “Can’t you just take the check and call it an apology?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you loved me?”
“We’ve been over for ages. Why does this even matter?”
“Well, it matters because you’ve been talking about me and singing about me pretty much constantly for a while now, Adam. Makes it kind of hard to put everything in the past, in all honesty.”
Nothing from him.
“In fact, I think it’s time I had my say,” I said. “So why didn’t you tell me?”
He turned his face away, the streetlights casting shadows on the sharp lines of his cheekbones and the shape of his lips. God, he was beautiful. Even in his exhausted, rundown state, I couldn’t help but stare, and my heart gave the most embarrassing lurch. Life would be so much simpler if I didn’t still swoon at the sight of him. At the thought of him. The more time passed, the more my head seemed to forget how aggravating he was in a thousand tiny everyday ways, but my heart still remembered perfectly what it had been like to fall for him.
“Three little words,” I said. “Can’t be that hard.”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“Bullshit.”
“It was never the right time.”
“Oh, please.” My throat tightened, and my vision swam. Ugh. “You never loved me. Our relationship was convenient for you. A place to live and someone to do your laundry. I was just an easy—”
He hung his head. “Fuck’s sake. You have got to be kidding me.”
“What?”
“You and me, we were never convenient. And you and easy have nothing in common. Trust me on that one.”
“You utter douche canoe.”
“I worshipped the ground you walked on.”
“You grunted at me and called it a conversation. No wonder I missed the signs of your supposed adulation.” I ground my teeth together. “Just admit it already. The whole being in love with me thing is bullshit. It’s a PR stunt or a…a…”
“Are you crying?”
“No!”
“Jill.” He leaned closer, cupping my face in his big hand. His gaze went from curious to startled in under a second. “Jesus, you are.”
I pushed off his hand. “I am not crying, I’m just very angry at you, and it’s coming out in unexpected ways.”
“We’re here,” announced the bodyguard.
Sure enough, out on the sidewalk, a group of fans waited along with several photographers waving their cameras around. I wiped the tears off my face. Stupid emotions. Righteous fury was what I was feeling. Not pain and heartache. I got over Adam a long time ago with the aid of ice-cream, vodka, and my most excellent girl gang. Those three things trumped a male of the species any day of the week. It was just that smelling him and hearing him and seeing him again had me confused or something.
In all likelihood, I was crying due to his presence giving me horrific flashbacks. To such occasions as when I went to visit my parents for a week and came back to find the interior of the fridge somehow entirely covered in black mold. Or the time I came home from work to find the furniture rearranged into the sign of the anti-Christ in honor of Ozzy Osbourne. Perhaps even the memory of when he wrote a song for me on the living room wall in permanent marker. A love song, almost, but without actually going so far as the L-word, of course. Because…Adam.
Actually, I didn’t hate that particular memory. I might have even taken a photo of the wall before I invited the girls over to graffiti all over it.
