What does she want from me? “Hey, Madison.”
She’s fiddling with her fingernails, eyes cast down as she numbly repeats, “I don’t sleep with guys on the first date.”
“Then let’s go on another one.” Her eyelashes fly up, incredulous. “I was kidding.”
“Were you?”
“Look, you’re making me out to be a bad guy. I’m not one.”
She turns in her seat, “No, I’m not saying you are. But you’re trying pretty hard to get me to sleep with you. You went from getting to know me, to inviting me to watch a movie at your place, and it’s nearly midnight, and I have a friend watching my dog.”
Thinking about it, I admit, “Okay, I forgot about the dog.”
“Actually, you forgot about the promise. And I did, too, for a second there. But now I can’t because it feels really obvious that I needed it to be true.”
My eyebrows pierce together. “What promise?”
She covers her face, taking a few deep breaths, and drops it again, meeting my eyes to say with a saint’s patience, her voice gentle, “You made a point of promising you weren’t going to try anything tonight, that you wanted to earn my trust.”
Like I’ve been hit, I sit back. “Oh shit.”
She opens the door and is climbing out of the car before I have a chance to realize what’s going on. I fly out, beat her to the building, open the door. “Jeezus, can’t you even let me be a gentleman?”
Madison adjusts her hemline. “You’re very confusing. I just wish you’d choose which to be, a gentleman or a pick-up artist.”
She walks in, leaving me staring as she hits the elevator button, crossing her arms and not looking over. The doors whoosh open and she disappears.
“Fuck this,” I mutter, racing in and slamming my hand in the slit before they get a chance to close all the way. The sensor beeps and they open up, leaving me and my date in a stand-off. “Hey, you were saying…you were…It wasn’t just me ready to go home with you, Madison.”
“Yes, for a moment there I forgot myself, and I wanted to go home with you. And it’s not your fault that things switched so quickly with me. I’m sure that was confusing, and that’s on me. But it is your fault for not holding to what you said. If you’d have stuck to that, and dropped me home, even with me wanting you, I probably would have been in your arms tomorrow, because I would have believed your claim that you wanted my trust, that I was…different.” The alarm goes off on the elevator doors as they object to being held open. She frowns, emotions flitting over her pretty face. “I have a feeling you’ve never wanted the things I want. If I’d have turned my cheek at what I knew about you tonight, and let things go further, you probably wouldn’t have called me again. But I’m not saying goodnight because by withholding sex, I’m hoping you will call. I’m saying it because I hope you won’t. I want a lot more than you do. And I can’t take the disappointment. Please let the door go so I can see Bucky. I kind of need to right now.”
Frowning I take my hand back and step away. As the doors hesitate, I do, too.
Madison is asking me to let her go, but it’s her who has me hostage, unable to move.
Now she’s gone.
Just like that.
CHAPTER 25
M ADISON
“How’d it go?” Denise asks from the couch before her expression falls. “Uh oh. Not good, huh?”
“No, it was great, but then I screwed up.” Squatting to pet my excited dog I glance back at her to shrug, “Or maybe I was smart. I really don’t know anything anymore. I’m very confused.”
She rises from the couch. “This requires chocolate.”
“No, chocolate will make me more depressed.”
“Okay, those two things do not go together! You need to tell me what happened.”
Walking to the kitchen with Bucky on my heels I grumble, “Wine I can do.”
Denise pulls some long-stemmed glasses from my cupboard while I uncork a bottle of rosé. “Madison, can I guess what you did?”
“No,” I frown, locking eyes with her for a brief second. “I don’t want to find out I’m predictable.”
Undeterred, she goes on to say, “He made a move and you shot him down.” She plucks a clean dishtowel from one of my drawers and begins to wipe spots off my glassware. “Am I right?”
“Well, that’s not too hard to guess.”
“So I’m right.”
“Yes, but that’s not the issue. I thought you were going to specifically guess how it happened. Then I would have been upset.”
“Mmhmm,” she hums, setting one glass down to shine the other. “You were having a great time. He even plied you with chocolate treats. You loosened up, despite your usual uptight and cautious nature. You agreed to sleep with the man, and then when the time came, you changed your damn mind. Probably gave him some magnanimous speech, too, didn’t you?”
Blinking at her, I removed the cork, its pop a punctuation mark. “Jeez.”
She holds out a glass for me to pour. “Do you think I don’t know you?”
Crumbling, I set the wine down and walk away, dragging both hands through my hair. “Why didn’t I just go with him?”
“You were scared. It’s that simple.”
“I know! But life is short!”
Pouring she mutters, “Not short enough to waste years holding a torch for some man you once touched who was too fine to forget.” Walking to me she extends a glass. “We are toasting your wisdom.”
“I don’t know if we can call it that. When you have the chance to be with a man like him, you take it.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Exhaling I admit, “Because I would’ve never forgotten him.”
“Exactly.”
“So I didn’t screw up?”
Her full lips squish to the side as she considers it a moment. “There are two sides to this. One, you jump in and probably get your heart broken.
