Confessions of a Bad Boy(66)
“So?” Nate says, his eyes unrepentant. “I make videos. That part of my life doesn’t have anything to do with this – with us. I don’t see the problem.”
“Fucking hell, Nate,” I say, with as much awe as frustration, starting to pace in front of the window. “You really don’t get it.”
“Get what? That you want me to feel ashamed? That you keep trying to fit me into some perfect little boyfriend role? That you don’t like the life I led before we got together? You know exactly who I am, Jessie, who I was.”
“I do, that’s the problem. Regardless of the videos you make, and whether or not you chose to hide them from me, I know that you’re never going to be the guy I need you to be.”
He flinches back as if I’ve struck him. “And who exactly is ‘that guy’? The guy who cheated on you? The guy whose car you wrecked? Or is it the one who bailed you out of jail at a moment’s notice? The one you’ve known since you were a little girl? The one who f*cks you the way you want? Which guy do you really need?”
“Ugh,” I groan. “It’s always about sex with you.”
“What else is there?” Nate shouts, raising his arms wide as if imploring some third party. “We f*ck well, and we’re good friends. This could work as a relationship, it doesn’t have to get more complicated than that. What else do you even want?”
I feel the pain and humiliation and anger rising in my chest, and I narrow my eyes and try to keep from yelling in his face. “A little f*cking honesty, for a start.”
Nate sighs, laughs, and puts his hands on his head. “Shit, Jessie. If that’s what this is all about, those f*cking videos, I can just stop making them. You don’t have to be this f*cking melodramatic.”
I stop and stare at him, half-shocked, half-insulted.
“You think I’m being melodramatic?”
“Yeah. And I’m a talent agent, so you know that means something.”
He says it with a smile, a controlled joke, meant to break me down, meant to release the tension, meant to make everything we’re arguing about feel irrelevant. But I don’t laugh, and his attempt at humor hangs there like a bad taste.
“Look,” Nate says, his voice low and soothing, as he steps toward me and puts his hands on my shoulders, “I get it. I understand how you can be mad at me. I’m a little slow on the uptake when it comes to relationships – you know that. It just took me a little time to get to where you are, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, looking up at him, holding on to my resistance despite the seductiveness of his eyes. He still thinks this situation is so simple. When in reality, it couldn’t be further from that, now that this baby is on the way. And how can I tell him?
“And the video thing…I should have told you. I would have told you. It’s not that big a deal to me, so it shouldn’t be for you. Shit, we’d probably have laughed about it if I got to tell you myself. I never meant for it to be some kind of secret.”
He holds me in his eyes, and despite my warring emotions I can’t help feeling the effects of the controlled desire in them.
“Actually…” I start, as his hands brush down to my waist, “I’ve got a secret of my own.”
“Oh yeah?” Nate says, and I see the smolder in his eyes that always ends with us naked.
“Yeah.” I take a deep breath, my heart about to pound right out of my chest. This is it. Now or never. “I’m pregnant.”
Nate stops breathing. I feel his hands stiffen at my sides, and his face turn to stone. He steps back, away from me, and brings his hands to his mouth, turning away, then turning back toward me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” My pulse is still skyrocketing, and I cross my arms and try to just breathe.
He paces a little more.
“How did that happen?”
This time I’m the one who smiles with controlled aggression. “I thought you were an expert?”
“It’s mine?”
I try – and fail – to hold back an insulted snort.
“No, it’s Lorelei’s - of course it’s yours. And I’m keeping it, so don’t even think about suggesting otherwise.”
Nate paces a little, breathing into his palms. He stops and looks at me.
“Okay. So what happens now?” he says, suddenly defiant and confrontational again. “Do you expect me to just…change into someone else?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t expect you to change at all. That’s the problem.”
Nate stands there glaring at me, tense and angry, as if I’ve cornered him. I guess I have.
“I need some time to think,” he says, already moving towards the door.
“I won’t hold my breath,” I reply, but he’s already gone.
22
Nate
I’m driving to meet Kyle at a taco place in Malibu, right off PCH. It’s a sunny Saturday, not too hot, and there’s the glorious kind of mid-day light over L.A. that almost makes you forgive living in a city of smog. But I’m gripping the wheel so tightly that my knuckles feel like they’re locked, and even the a/c can’t stop the uncomfortable prickliness running down my spine.