Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(4)

I didn’t return that favor.

“Why do you get the girlfriend who folds your clothes when you leave them in my dryer, and rushes to court to bring you a new tie when you’ve spilled lunch on the one you were wearing? And looks after your dog when you’re in Vegas with your buds? And bakes cookies for your boss’s birthday to buy you points? Then I sit down to dinner with him and charm him when my family was having a get together and I wanted to be with them. But you were my guy, that was important to you, so I did my face and hair and put on an appropriate dress and sat at your side. And the man liked me so much, he told you to marry me and offered me a job. Why do you get that woman, and I get a man who doesn’t listen to me until I feel the need to shout, either literally or figuratively? The man who thinks he can decide for the both of us what’s important, and what’s not, deeming my wishes unimportant, then deigning to acquiesce to them, still thinking they’re petty, when they aren’t? They’re my wishes. So they matter.”

The cookie timer went off.

I moved to the oven, peered in, then opened the door, took them out and put the tray on a hot pad on the counter.

I returned my attention to Bryan.

He was staring at the cookies.

What he wasn’t doing was addressing my concerns in any real way.

“I’m sorry, Bryan, but I’m done talking, and I am because I’ve said all this before in one way or another, and you didn’t bother to hear me. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with my night. So if you could leave my key and then grab your box and go, I’d appreciate it.”

His gaze darted from the cookies to me.

“That’s it? We’re together over a year, you decide we’re done, you kick my ass out and we’re done?”

And again, I wanted to scream.

I also wanted to cry.

Because he spoke truth. We’d been together for over a year.

I went there with him at first because he was good-looking.

I stuck around because he was funny, smart, interesting, and at the time, attentive.

He was also a mover and shaker.

He was an attorney, and his goal was to make full partner by the time he was thirty-five. It was a huge firm, which had been around for sixty years. The youngest they’d made someone a partner was at forty-two. It seemed an impossible goal, but he was going for it.

I liked a man with drive, ambition, because I was that kind of woman.

A woman with drive.

A woman with ambition.

He was also in killer student loan debt, and even though he made good money, he was living on the cheap because he wanted them out of his life. He could sacrifice. He could save. He could be responsible.

I was a woman who could sacrifice, save, be responsible.

He dressed great, and because he worked hard, he played harder. He didn’t waste the small amount of downtime he had. He was busy and he was social, he had good taste in music and movies, and he made it a priority, being with me.

I had yet to have an excellent lover, and I knew that regardless of the fact I had yet to have one.

But he didn’t suck in bed. He cared that I orgasmed, and he put effort into it, so that was a plus.

In the beginning, even though I was young, too young (in my estimation) to commit, (I was twenty-three), I thought there might be a possibility I’d found my man.

So I might know my own mind, and that mind was made up we were over, but this wasn’t easy for me.

I just wasn’t going to cry and moan and whine and beg in front of him.

I’d deal with those feelings when he left.

And this was another indication that he didn’t get it.

Any of it.

“This isn’t easy for me, Bryan,” I told him.

“Could have fooled me, babe,” he returned.

Okay, this had to end.

“You know, unless you clue in, yes, I’m going to say it, unless you grow up and make changes, one day, you’re going to find a woman. And you’re going to be able to hold on to her because she will love you more than she loves herself. And that is not a good thing, Bryan.”

He stared at me.

I kept talking.

“Then, somewhere down the line, you’re going to look at her and see the light is out in her eyes. She might find things to bicker with you about that make no sense, because they’re not what really matters. She’ll just be bitter she didn’t stand up for herself, she didn’t stop it before it was too late, and she’s going to find ways to take that out on you. But what really mattered was that every day, in little ways, you showed her she was not important to you, and she put up with it. You did what you liked, and she sucked it up, because she’d asked and asked, and you didn’t care enough to make the effort.”

The flush was coming back to his face.

I kept going.

“Eventually, you treating her like she’s not important will drive home the fact that she’s not. She’ll start believing it. And because she’s not important, she needs you. Because…who else would have her? She’s not worthy. She’s going to be a shell of her former self, striking out at random, making your life miserable, and you’re going to wonder what happened to the lively, awesome chick you first met, not understanding you buried her under your own shit. And it’s highly likely from there, you’ll scrape her off and find someone else you can smother with your neglect and self-absorption.”