Make Me (Broke and Beautiful #3)(61)

“Friends.” He backed away slowly, his gaze weighing her down like a boulder. Just before he reached the door, he leaned down to pick up his T-shirt and collect his shoes with methodical movements. She thought he meant to leave without another word, but he stopped. Without looking at her, he said. “I don’t want to be your friend, Abby. I want to be your husband.”

Moisture streamed down her cheeks, but Russell didn’t see it because he walked from the apartment barefoot, without looking back a single time. As soon as the door closed behind him, Abby sank down onto the bathroom floor with a heart-wrenching sob, positive her lungs were caving in. She didn’t get up again until darkness fell, and it was only to crawl into bed.





Chapter 19



RUSSELL WALKED BACK to Queens. He moved uptown on autopilot, crossing the Queensboro Bridge as darkness fell. Apart from the odd bicyclist whizzing past toward Manhattan, the bridge was mostly empty of pedestrians, but a marching band could have passed him, and he wouldn’t have flinched.

He’d lost Abby. Lost her completely. Before he’d gone and f*cked their relationship all to hell, he’d at least had the privilege of being her friend. The guy she sat beside in restaurants or car rides as if it were a foregone conclusion. The first one she smiled at when walking into a room. At the time, he’d thought being that close without ending up in bed was pure torture. Right now, it sounded like the highest level of heaven one could achieve. And he would never, in his pathetic life, reach it again.

He wasn’t even in a place yet where he could wrap his mind around the catastrophe of what had happened back at Abby’s apartment. All he knew was the coldness wouldn’t leave him alone. Ice lined his veins, made his muscles feel stiff and difficult to move. His heart . . . he wished it would just give in and stop working. Why wouldn’t it just stop working? Tick . . . tick . . . tick. Every beat was pointless. Every f*cking thing was pointless without her.

That saying, hindsight is twenty-twenty, was taunting him, ringing in his head like a fight bell. His experience had been somewhat different, though. The second—the goddamn second—Abby moved across the bathroom and away from him, he’d seen everything go up in smoke. She’d seen it, too. No. He was done lying to himself. He’d seen the flames even before walking into the bathroom, but he’d been so starved for her, nothing could have stopped him. Except the knowledge that he would lose her, and the notion terrified him so much, he’d pretended it didn’t exist.

Every single thing she’d said had been right. He’d stood there absorbing every blow like a boxer with his hands bound behind his back. Some sick part of him had even welcomed the rejection because he deserved it for keeping her in the dark so long. I was yours! Those words might as well be a tattoo on his consciousness because they would never go away, popping up to remind him of his worst failure until he died. Which would be before he even arrived home if the torn-up feeling in his chest was any indication.

Russell became aware of his surroundings slowly. How long had he been standing outside his house? Taking the phone from his pocket to check the time felt like far too much effort, so he just stared at the two-story home, a sickening laugh working its way toward his throat. Had he actually envisioned carrying Abby over the threshold of this place? The place that held the very childhood memories that led him to f*ck everything up? Yeah, he had. His subconscious hadn’t believed his bullshit about Abby’s being a package delivered to the wrong doorstep. He might have fed himself the truth about not being worthy, but he’d been preparing for her since they’d met. The whole damn time.

“Hey, *.”

He didn’t even need to turn his head to know his brother had spoken. Not many people called a person of his size *. “Go away, Alec.”

“What?” Alec stopped in front of him, holding a twelve-pack of Budweiser on his right shoulder. “Darcy is watching The Bachelor, so I’m home free for an hour or two. I don’t want to know who gets a rose, so we’re going to celebrate this bank loan, motherf*cker.”

His brother’s words were little arrows spearing into his ears. “Fine,” Russell heard himself say. “But I’m not going in there.”

Alec split a curious look between Russell and the house. “You’ve spent every waking hour in there for the last week. Your gigantic outline has faded from my couch.”

God. Russell buried his fingers into his temples. He’d been sleeping on a couch, and Abby had known it. She’d ridden in his rickety truck. I was yours. I was yours. The angel had wanted him exactly as he was, and he’d been so hung up on being the big bad provider, he’d missed the weight behind her every word. Every gesture. She’d accepted him, but he hadn’t given her the same gift. He’d projected a need for a certain lifestyle onto her when she’d only proven at every turn that people were what mattered to her. Honey. Roxy. Him. He’d been important to her. But in the end, he’d only let her down.

With the coldness eating his insides, that reliable hindsight was more powerful now than ever. Abby was one in a million. He’d always known that, but his fear of her meeting the same fate as his mother had prevented him from acting like it. If Abby wasn’t happy, she wouldn’t blame other people. Her surroundings. She would just find a way to improve it. That was who she was. Nobody else. And the crazy truth was? Until the world fell down, before he’d tried to push her away, he’d been one of the things making her happy. He had the ability to do that. But he’d squandered it.