Grounded (Up in the Air #3)(36)

I gripped his hair in my fists, searching desperately for the words to say to him.

He pulled himself gently out of my grasp. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Stephan

STEPHAN

I took a long shower and slipped into some black running shorts, not bothering with a shirt. I thought about going for a nice, mind-clearing run. I could be in Central Park in minutes. I loved running there. It was dark out, and I knew that it wasn’t the safest thing to do, but hell, I’d almost welcome some trouble. I’d have enjoyed a good fight just then, even knowing that I’d hate myself after the violence. Even when the violence was self-defense, I hated myself for it.

I was standing in the doorway to the closet, my running shoes clutched in my hand, when Javier walked into the bedroom.

I had been planning to go to him, knew that we had to talk, but I’d been putting it off. A conversation that would most likely end in a break-up was not something I had any wish to rush into.

He stared at me, something raw and fierce moving behind his dark eyes. I could tell he’d been crying, but it didn’t take away from his lovely features.

“I know that you’re going to break up with me,” he said quietly, his voice shaky. “I know you well enough to see that you’re just working up the nerve. I only ask one thing before you do it.”

I looked down at my feet, my still wet hair trailing into my face. “What is it?” I asked.

“I just want you to sit down and hear me out. And look at me while I do it. If you care about me, you’ll give me at least that much before you write me off.”

I moved to the low couch across the room. I sat and finally looked at him steadily. “Go ahead,” I told him calmly.

He moved to me. His chin had a proud tilt to it, as it always did. Bianca thought he was a little cold, but I’d never seen him that way. In fact, he reminded me a lot of Bianca, so composed, so controlled, so hidden away to the casual observer. But nothing between Javier and I had ever been casual, so I hadn’t bought it for a second. He was reserved, yes, but never cold.

He knelt at my feet.

“Can I touch you?” he asked. His eyes on mine were more open, and more raw than I’d ever seen them.

It was hard to tell him no when he was looking at me like that, but I refused to be that self-destructive, so I shook my head at him. “No.”

His lip quivered, and it almost broke my resolve. It was an effort not to look away.

He was on his knees and he moved as close to me as he could possibly be without actually touching me. He was wearing a very fitted black shirt, and his taut stomach was just a breath away from my knees. I tried not to let that distract me.

“I know what you think,” Javier said. “You think I like drama. You think I got jealous of that bartender and tried to make you jealous. I can admit that I have been that guy before. I’ve been in that kind of high drama relationship before, but I am not like that anymore. That’s what I had with Vance, in fact.”

My jaw clenched hard, but I let him continue without a word, just staring at him.

“That drama-seeking bullshit is the sort of thing you do when you aren’t in love, when you don’t really care where your relationship is going, and that is not what we have, Stephan. We’re the real deal. I wouldn’t do that to you, not ever. I admit that I was jealous of Melvin, and that I was being a child about it, but I would not retaliate by cheating on you. I wouldn’t throw this away for anything.”

His chin lowered as he spoke, but he never looked away from me. He gazed up at me with those lovely dark eyes through the thickest set of lashes I’d ever seen.

I wanted to buy his words, would have loved nothing more, but again I refused to be self-destructive. I’d worked too hard to value myself to stop now.

“You can’t put a spin on what I saw, Javier. Vance was all over you, and you weren’t so much as twitching. You weren’t even trying to pull away.” I tried not to raise my voice, but it was a struggle.

He put a hand on my knee, as though it was involuntary—as though he couldn’t help the touching.

I pushed it off. “Don’t,” I said, my voice low and mean.

I tried not to be affected as a lone tear trailed down his cheek.

“To explain what you saw I have to explain a little of what Vance and I were like together.” He swallowed hard, and I watched his throat work. I made myself look back into his eyes.

“We were toxic,” he said. “We were that drama couple. It was just about the only thing we had going for us. He was obsessed with me, and I was immature enough to think that was enough to make a relationship work. He stroked my ego, and I made him crazy, and he liked being crazy. He wanted a reaction from me, always. Whether that reaction was good or bad, he didn’t really care. He would say or do something horrible to me, and I would react, and he loved it. It got to the point where we could have been the same person, as far as the relationship was concerned. We did hurtful things, we said hurtful things, and we didn’t even love each other. That’s the emptiest feeling, to know that you would hurt someone else just to feel something. I’m not proud of it, but I have been that person. I am not that person now.”

He put that hand back on my knee, and I didn’t push it away, even thinking that I should. He moved closer, bumping his hips between my knees until they parted enough to let him move closer. I could see his other hand trembling as he put it on my chest.