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She makes a slicing motion in the air. “I’m asking the questions.”
I snap my mouth shut and wait. I pray she doesn’t go down the path I think she’s headed because if she does, it’s nowhere good.
Her chest heaving, Fallon stares me dead in the eye. “After knowing me for over five years, after talking to me almost every single day—either via text or phone—you still thought I could be that person? That I was jealous of my best friend in the entire world? The person who was here when my mother died. The person whose life-threatening injuries brought us closer. Somewhere in your twisted mind, you gave credence to the shit you accused me of that night?”
My “Yes” is riddled with shame because I did and I can’t deny it.
Her head ducks to the side, and she hits the timer to start it again. It starts counting back from thirty-two.
“I suspect in your thorough research you called in to Devil’s Lair, didn’t you?”
No, no, no. Not this. Anything but this. “Fallon…” I plead.
“Answer the fucking question, Ethan!” she screams.
“Yes.”
“Did you like the way I talked to you?” Her voice turns into “Filia’s”—a seductive purr.
I can’t lie. If I do, she’ll never believe me again. “At first, No. Once I realized it was you? Yes.”
“You fucking hypocrite.”
“What? How can you say that?”
“These people who work there aren’t there to get their rocks off. They’re there out of need. Do you think they like doing that kind of work? That they want their children to grow up to do that?”
His lips tighten at the corners. “I’ll concede some of them are like that.”
“Yet you have the goddamn nerve to stand here and convince me they did something wrong? The people who stood by me? That I was wrong because I dared to use my voice to try to save my mother. Yet, it’s perfectly fine for the high and mighty Ethan Kensington to get hard because he was looking out for the greater good? Fuck you, Ethan. Fuck you and fuck whomever you were working for.”
Fallon storms out of the kitchen. I’ve no choice but to follow her. Still, I can’t help but bellow her name to try to stop her.
She whirls on me like I’m fresh chum in shark-infested waters. “Get out of my mother’s house.”
I lift my hand to touch her cheek, but she slaps my hand away so hard I feel the sting radiate up my arm. Tears fall down her cheeks as she reaches for the handle of the front door. She flings the door open and stands next to it. She points at her mother’s porch, a silent demand for me to leave.
Not wanting to push her further, I cross over the threshold. Fallon’s tears are still falling fast and furious and I want nothing more than to hold her, to make things right. But I savaged that.
Me.
Not anyone else, not her mother’s death.
She reminds me of just that. “A few weeks ago, I’d have given anything to have you here.”
“I’m here now, Fallon.”
“Funny, now it means absolute crap.”
Her gorgeous indigo eyes hold mine as she slams the door in my face.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
The mementos you collect over time tell a story not about your taste but about your history. Don’t try to manipulate them to match your space, but allow your space to organically grow from them.
—Beautiful Today
Back at my apartment, I drop another box of pizza as well as the box of things I needed from my mother’s on the counter with a thud. The overwhelming feeling I endured as I sorted through my mother’s possessions sent me rushing to the bathroom to puke up my breakfast more than once.