Page 28 of Mending Fate
I’d loved touching him. I couldn’t deny it.
But I still should have known better.
Then he’d asked about a ‘happy ending,’ and I’d felt justified in sending him away. That should have been the end.
Except he’d come back.
Why had I let him back in? I could’ve been fine with accepting an apology. Why had I gone further? Why had I taken him home with me? Why had I kept seeing him after I found out he was the father of one of my students?
I was an idiot.
That pretty much had to be it because I couldn’t see another explanation that made sense. I had no one to blame but myself. I’d known that he and I came from vastly different worlds and that he hadn’t been looking for a relationship. Despite all the proof I’d seen over the years about how stories like this really ended, I’d been foolish enough to believe we could be different.
It didn’t matter how right we’d felt together or how well we’d seemed to get along. The truth was, the world didn’t work that way. People like me had to work their asses off to get a good life, and people like him had it handed to them.
None of this stopped my heart from skipping when the front door opened. No logic regarding the fact that he didn’t have a key could stop my mind from immediately leaping to the conclusion that Alec had come back. No rational thinking kept me from being disappointed when it was Mai instead.
She stopped at the spot where our rug used to be, looked down, looked up at me, then around the apartment. “Did I miss something?”
I sighed and sat on the floor, abandoning the rag I’d been using to clean and polish the end table next to the couch. “You have no idea.”
Mai took off her shoes, dropped her purse and overnight bag on the floor, and came over to sit next to me. “Start with where our rug is and why it’s gone. I have a feeling it’s related to your sudden need to polish a table we picked up at a flea market for five bucks.”
“Alec showed up last night, drunk.”
Mai’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything.
“He said he missed me, kissed me, and then threw up all over the rug. It’s in the bathroom now.”
The horrified expression on her face made me feel better. At least I wasn’t alone in thinking the past eighteen hours or so had been completely insane.
“Is he still here?” She whispered the question, eyes darting toward the hallway.
I shook my head.
“You sent him home after he threw up?”
I shook my head again.
Her expression softened, worry competing with compassion. “Oh, sweetie. Did you sleep with him?”
“I didn’t mean to.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. “After he threw up, I got him and the rug cleaned up, but I didn’t want to send him home like that. He’d taken a cab here, and I could’ve sent him back in one, but I didn’t know if he’d pass out or not.”
“Not sure how cleaning up puke turned into you accidentally fucking him.”
Leave it to Mai to boil a situation down to the most basic elements.
“I put him in my bed and figured I’d sleep in yours.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Now, I’m hoping you kept the action to your room.”
I gave her a withering look. “I wouldn’t have sex in your bed.”
She shrugged. “The whole thing is weird. I didn’t want to make assumptions.”
She had a point.
“He asked me to stay with him, so I figured I’d stay until he fell asleep. With how insane my last couple days have been, I was exhausted. I fell asleep too and then woke up with him yelling Evanne’s name.” Despite everything, my heart twisted with the memory. “I woke him up, and he told me he’d had a nightmare.”