Dirty Little Secrets (Dirty Little #1)(25)
It’s kind of like a raincloud hanging over my head. I know it’s going to start pouring at some point, but I’m hoping to stay dry for as long as I can.
I step inside Caleb’s apartment, feeling uncomfortable with my empty handedness. I’m here for an extended stay, but I don’t have anything with me. I didn’t have anything to bring with me, except for the clothes I left at my hotel. I never did check out of there, and only paid by the night, so I’m guessing the clothes I did have with me have been tossed or donated. Yet another strike against me.
When the door closes behind us, Caleb makes a show of locking it. It’s a touching gesture; even though we’re in a secured building on a floor high in the sky, he still wants me to feel safe here.
Caleb steps up to me, and pulls me into his arms.
“You’re safe here,” he says. He’s holding me as tightly as he dares, and apart from handholding while I was bedridden, it’s the most prolonged contact we’ve had in days.
“I know,” I reply with a grateful sigh. “Thank you for letting me stay here. I’m not quite ready to go back to the hotel.”
I feel his muscles stiffen as soon as the words leave my mouth, so I know I’ve said something wrong, but I don’t know what.
“You’re not going back to the hotel,” he says firmly. There’s a hard, unwavering glint in his eyes, like he’s just daring me to challenge him on this.
I take a deep breath to get a grip on my rapidly fraying nerves. I might be scared and borderline desperate, but, “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Caleb.”
I’m not sure whether I step out of his arms or he steps out of mine, but before I know it, we’re standing with a few inches (that feel like a mile) between us.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me!” I yell. I feel like I’m on some kind of emotional roller coaster, and I can’t tell which end is up. I’m angry, and I can’t get a handle on that, but why am I upset? Caleb cares about me, he just wants me to be safe, but this sets a bad precedent. He can’t just command me to do things his way just because he’s scared and worried. “If I want to go back to the hotel, I’ll go back to the hotel. You don’t get to tell me what to do now, especially not if that’s going to be a requirement for your hospitality.”
His eyes widen. “You think I want to control you?”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing? Is there some other way that I’m supposed to interpret you telling me that I can’t go back to my hotel if I want to?”
“Please,” he says, gritting his teeth. “Don’t fight me on this.”
Those are the exact words that make me want to fight him on this. I’m feeling the last bit of my control slipping through my fingertips, and all I need is just a minute of quiet to collect my thoughts and work through them, but Caleb isn’t going to give that to me. I walk toward the door, not really sure where I’ll go once I step outside of it, but needing to move, to-
“Mia,” Caleb says, and the desperation in his voice is enough to get me to stop. “I’m your boyfriend, I’m not about to let you go out to a strange hotel right after you’ve been robbed when I have a nice and safe place for you to stay right here!”
I can’t feel or hear anything apart from the rush of blood in my ears. He’s my boyfriend? We’ve never even discussed anything like that, even though I obviously haven’t been seeing anyone else, and given the amount of time he spends with me, Caleb can’t be, either. We’ve known each other for almost a month, but I still haven’t come clean with him about the real reason why I’m here. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it from him, and I feel terrible taking him up on his kindness when I haven’t even been honest with him. Hearing him call himself my boyfriend knowing all that seems like too much, and yet it makes a flood of warmth flow through my veins.
I like the word, like hearing him talking about belonging to me.
“You’re my boyfriend now?” I ask. My voice sounds accusatory and mean in a way that I wasn’t intending.
Caleb looks like I’ve actually hit him. “Aren’t I?”
“We never talked about it, I just-”
“I assumed.” He takes a long, deep breath, like he’s trying to calm himself down. “Is that not where this is headed for you?”
“No, it’s not that. I just didn’t know that was where this was headed for you.”
Caleb’s eyebrows scrunch together. “Have I somehow been unclear about my intentions? You’re the only woman in my life. You’re the only woman I want to be in my life.”
My heart is hammering in my chest, and I feel like I might pass out. I had figured we were on our way to getting serious, but I had been avoiding thinking about that, because I didn’t want to deal with the fact that this thing that Caleb and I are building together is standing on a foundation full of cracks. Cracks that I put there by not being honest with him about why I’m here in the city, why I ran away from Chicago. What am I going to do? Stay and let my shadowy past lurk out there in the distance somewhere, wondering if I’ve run so far that it can’t ever catch up with me? Tell him I’m a thief and lose him forever?
“You haven’t been unclear about your intentions,” I say, looking down at my hands.