The Randy Romance Novelist(36)

The apartment was dark when I opened the door, not a light or a sound to be seen or heard. A sickening feeling came over me as I dropped my computer bag in the entryway and started searching the apartment. Sir Licks-a-Lot was on the living room windowsill, licking his crotch as usual, and barely looked away from his kitty balls to acknowledge my arrival.

Ignoring him, I blew past the living room and straight into the bedroom, where I found Rosie lying on the bed, curled into a ball and sobbing. My heart broke in two just from the sight of seeing her so weak, so sad. I did that to her.

Needing to be near her, I took off my jacket, tossed it to the side, and walked up to the bed. “Love, can we talk?”

She shook her head no, not even able to voice her sorrow.

“Rosie, please, I need to talk to you about this. I don’t want you being upset.”

She picked up her head and I swear venom shot out of her mascara-drenched eyes as she shouted at me. “Well, it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”

I sat down on the bed to be closer to her, but she scooted away. She was still in her coat, and from her rumpled appearance, I could see it didn’t look like she had anything under it.

Christ. I ran my hand over my face and gathered my thoughts.

“Rosie, I’m going to try to talk to you in a rational, calm voice. Can you please listen to me before getting emotional?”

“Emotional?” she screamed, as she sat up in bed. She pulled her hair out of her high ponytail, shoved her hand through the top, and pulled high so her hair was sticking straight up in the air. Her eyes were wild and her movements erratic as she spoke. I was scared for my life. “How can I not get emotional when I walked in on you and Tasha making out.”

Yup, this wasn’t going to be fun at all, and by the insanity beaming off her, I knew she was going to be irrational about everything.

“First of all,” I held up my hand as I spoke to her, trying to calm her inner crazy, “we were not making out, not even close to it.”

“Likely story,” she crossed her arms and puffed up her chest.

I rubbed my forehead and took a deep breath. “Rosie, why would I make out with Tasha? What on earth would possess me to do that?”

“Well, you did it right after we had sex for the first time!”

And there it was, the unspoken elephant in the room that had always put a black mark on our young relationship. The Tasha incident.

To be fair, it wasn’t all my fault. Rosie and I had sex for the first time a few months back, and it was by far, the best thing that ever happened in my life. I had been wanting to make Rosie mine for a while, and finally, finally she gave into my flirting and the passes I was making at her.

When I claimed her lips, and pressed our bodies together for the first time, I was immediately lost in her love. I knew right then and there, there was no turning back for me. Rosie was it, she would be my girl for as long as I lived.

Was our first time a little awkward because she kept asking questions? Yes, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Watching her face light up when her orgasm took over her body and listening to the sweet sounds pop out of her mouth would forever be engrained in my mind.

Afterward, I wanted to hold her all night, I wanted to continue to explore her body, I wanted to tell her how much I was in love with her, but then, she checked her voicemail . . .

Literally seconds after I pulled out of her, she had her phone in her hand, listening to a voicemail from another man.

Try being a man who’d been pining after a girl for so long, then finally being able to get lost in her sweet skin, only to be brushed off right after you came inside of her. I was f*cking wrecked.

She got a phone call from Atticus, the man with the busted balls, who she danced with and actually had a decent connection with, but not good enough.

She then proceeded to tell me that he wanted to go out with her again.

I could still smell her on my skin when she told me this, I could still feel her * wrapped around my cock; what was I supposed to say to that?

At the moment, it seemed like she was just using me to lose her virginity, that she actually didn’t have any intention whatsoever of being with me. So, I did what any other broken-hearted man with an ounce of pride left inside would have done, I went on the defensive. I acted like what we just did didn’t rock my world and flip it upside down.

I was broken, battered, completely and utterly devastated, but I didn’t show it.

Instead of being a man, and claiming her as mine, I took what was left of my shattered heart and moved on. Was it the right thing to do? No, but I’m human and humans make mistakes.

“Fine, you want to talk about what happened with Tasha a few months ago? Let’s get into it, let’s rip it open.” I sat there and waited for her to answer me. If we were going to fight, might as well get it all out.

In a hoity voice, Rosie said, “If you were a character in a book, you would have lost all chance of becoming a book boyfriend. You broke the cardinal sin in every romance novel; you were with another woman after you were with me.”

My mind exploded and I lost it. “News flash, Rosie, we’re not living in a romance novel. This is real f*cking life, not some fictional story you read on your Kindle. Do you know what happens in real life? We get hurt, we act on those hurt feelings, and then we do stupid shit we will regret later. Not everything is going to end as a happily ever after. You have to work for love, you have to earn it, and you sure as hell have to maintain it.”