Page 142 of Only After We Met
I held my breath. Not even two minutes had passed since he entered my office after a year’s absence, and already he’d turned my world upside down, making my skin burn as it touched his. Worse: before we had even touched.
I laid my quivering hands on his chest.
“Ginger… Ginger…” He kissed me again.
“Wait, Rhys. I can’t. Not now.”
He stepped back. I could see the incomprehension in the gray of his eyes as I tried to quickly button the blouse he had almost torn open. I slid off my desk and stood there leaning against it, hands clutching its edge, not wanting him to see me shaking.
“What’s up, Ginger?”
“This isn’t how it works.” I glared at him now. I was furious—furious at him, furious at myself. “You can’t just barge in and do this! You can’t just assume that summer two years ago was something you can pick up and leave off at your whim.”
Rhys took a deep breath as his brow furrowed. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I just… I saw you, and you know you do that to me; you know I can’t get over you, don’t you, Ginger? I can’t keep my hands off you…”
He approached me again. Seductive, but without forcing himself, so certain in his every movement, so fascinating I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.
“You don’t understand…”
“What don’t I understand?”
I told him softly: “I’m going out with someone.”
He blinked. Confused. Then looked down and looked back up. I don’t know what I saw in his eyes just then. There was…so much. Things mingled, tangled. I couldn’t tell what it all meant. Maybe he couldn’t either.
He ran a hand through his hair and paced through the office, hands on his hips, then stared at me. “Who is he? You never told me anything…”
“But…we agreed we wouldn’t talk about that. You know, when we were together two summers ago. I didn’t know if I should until I saw where things were going. Neither of us has talked about that stuff. You either. Unless you want to hurt me, I mean. Jesus, Rhys. I hate this. I hate it…”
“Ginger,” he interrupted me, impatient.
“James. We’re giving it a real try.”
“James? Again? Are you kidding?”
“You say that as if I haven’t been crashing into the same wall for years,” I replied, not realizing my voice had started rising.
“What fucking wall?” he shouted.
“You, Rhys. You’re my wall.”
I blinked as I tried to stop myself from crying as I saw how upset he was. My eyes itched. I was starting to fall apart. I don’t know what we were trying to do there staring at each other; in the silence, we were telling each other something, but I couldn’t say what. I was almost relieved when Kate knocked again after finishing her cigarette on the balcony.
“I just wanted to remind you that you have a lunch date,” she said, then, to Rhys, smiling: “A pleasure meeting you, Rhys.”
I closed my eyes and sighed, trying to stay calm as she departed. He was still there, leaning against the windowsill and staring out into the gray sky, which looked as if it was about to spill its fury over us.
“Fuck…” I turned and grabbed my phone out of my bag.
“What is it now? You’re getting married tomorrow, and you forgot to order the flowers?”
“Fuck you, Rhys,” I hissed.
“What’s the problem? It wouldn’t surprise me if you forgot to tell me.”
For a moment, I forgot I was supposed to have lunch with James. I forgot I was looking for my phone to try and cancel, even if, punctual as he was, he was probably almost there. I forgot everything that wasn’t this moment. And I let my anger out. The rage I’d suppressed. The indignation.
“How can you be so goddamn selfish?! How can you throw it in my face that I didn’t tell you about James when for years you’ve been fucking whoever you feel like, and I never even dared ask you for an explanation? What is it with you, Rhys? Has it ever occurred to you to think about someone else?”