Muffin Top (Page 55)

But when he looked at the bartender, she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking behind him. He glanced back, and his gut collapsed in on itself.

Lucy stood at the end of the bar, her face white with fury. It wasn’t aimed at the two asshole cops, though. She was looking right at him as if she was about to pick up a flamethrower and charbroil his ass into ashes.

…

Lucy couldn’t breathe. Her lungs stopped functioning. Her brain went on the fritz. Her whole body was hot and cold at the same time, and the only sound she could hear was the rush of blood in her ears.

Certain words screamed louder than others in her head.

Sex.

Wild.

And she’d thought she wouldn’t have to deal with that whole fat-chicks-are-crazier-in-bed bullshit with Frankie. But maybe he’d just been better at hiding it than some of the others. God knew he’d been good enough at hiding her. When had they ever gone out in public since they’d gotten back? Even here at the party, he’d made sure no one could see them when he kissed her. She’d been waiting for it to all go to shit without realizing that it already had.

Forget pity fuck. She was his secret fuck.

Frankie turned to her. “Lucy—”

She glanced around, her stomach twisting into knots at the idea that the whole bar was hanging on their every word, watching the fat chick get humiliated. It was bad enough this was happening to her at her friend’s engagement party. To be the butt of an entire bar’s joke would be too much.

“Which part was so wild that made it worth it even though it was me?” she asked, so pissed at herself for that nugget of hope that had somehow grown into a mountain that she was shaking. So she fell back into her most familiar defensive posture. She attacked. “Sex under the stars on the floating deck? Maybe the road head? Or there was the time at the hotel that ended with us getting calls of bravo from the room next door? Which one of those so-called crazy sexcapades made it into your big-girls-will-let-you-do-anything category? Or is it that all of the many, many women you fucked before me were just that boring in bed?”

The color went out of his face. “It’s not about that.”

He reached for her, but she took a step back to avoid his touch. If he made contact, she’d break down completely, and she’d be damned if she did that. Not here. Not in front of everyone. Instead, she’d battle and fight to prove they hadn’t gotten to her. They never would.

“Really, then what is it about?” she asked, her voice starting to shake a little as emotion bled through. “How you were so hard up during your sex break that even someone like me started looking good?”

Frankie froze. Then a flush of angry red rushed up from his shirt collar. “What the hell, Lucy. You know that’s not the case.”

“And that’s why we always met at my apartment then, right? That’s why we never left it?”

“I didn’t want to scare you off. I wanted to prove to you that I was different.” He took a step forward, reaching for her.

She waved his attempt off. “Oh yeah, the no-sex pledge. How did that go for you? How long did you make it? Almost a week? Wow. You really are different now.”

“That’s a really shitty thing to say.” His voice was carefully neutral, as if he was trying to hold onto whatever sense of control he still had of his temper. “You know it was about more than that.”

Well, it was too late for her. Her fury was on a roll now. Like an avalanche, there was nothing that was going to stop it. All she wanted to do was to make him hurt as much as she did right now.

“Don’t worry, Junior. You’re not turning into your dad. You’re so fucking scared of taking a real risk that you’re spending your life surrounded by people but without making a commitment to anyone. It’s fascinating, really. You’re so petrified of being alone, but you can’t commit, either. But you’ve got them all fooled, don’t you? Everybody loves Frankie Hartigan, it’s just important not to fall in love with him.”

He flinched as if she’d just delivered a solid punch before straightening to his full height and narrowing his eyes as he glared at her. “You sure didn’t seem to be complaining when you were coming all over my dick.”

“Don’t turn this around on me,” she said, jamming a finger into his chest. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Sure it’s not. You’re just walking around with all of your emotional baggage waiting for me to fuck you over like your mom did your dad,” he said, his voice harsh and low. “You said you were suspicious of actual love, but it’s not that. You’re scared shitless.”

The truth of his words slammed into her, stealing her breath, but not for long. “Oh, that’s rich coming from someone who barely said five words to me before a week and a half ago,” she said, knowing she sounded like some haughty bitch who got paid to make grown men feel like children, but not giving two shits. “You don’t even know me.”

“That’s shit,” he snarled back, his control obviously ripped to shreds. “I know you better than you think because you’re just like me.”

She narrowed her eyes and gutted him with a glare. “You know what? There are a million men out there who have mansplained everything from my weight to my food choices to my audacity to wear clothes that show off all eleventy billion of my curves, but I’ve never had one who mansplained my own emotions.”

“Maybe it’s past time someone did,” he said, his volume spiking, “because you’ve been lying to yourself about them for long enough that you believe your own bullshit.”

That was crap. She practiced brutal self-honesty—about her size, her personality, her skills, her weaknesses, her ambitions, her accomplishments. Everything. She would never lie to herself about something so important. She wouldn’t.

Oh really?

She shoved that quiet voice in her head back down and faced the man she’d been stupid enough to fall in love with. See? Brutal self-honesty.

“Fuck you, Frankie Hartigan.” Her voice broke on his name, her eyes filling with tears.

…

And that’s what broke him. Not the words. Not the things she must have been thinking about him all along. Not the pain tearing him up inside. What got to him was that he’d made her cry. He’d hurt the one woman he should have protected with everything he had.

He’d failed her.

He’d failed them.

Desperate to roll back from the edge they were rushing over, he reached out again, but she avoided his touch. “Lucy.”

“Just stop.” She held up a hand, warning him off as she took a step back so she was outside of arm’s reach. Then she took a deep breath, letting it out in one slow exhale that seemed to bring her back from the height of her anger. “This wasn’t going to work out back here in Waterbury. Everything that happened in Antioch was that false connection that happens sometimes on vacation when you are with people under unusual circumstances and you forge a bond off of that. It doesn’t last. It’s not real. I knew it. Deep down, I’m sure you knew it, too. There is too much history for you and skewed expectations for me. I don’t have the energy for it when we both know it’s not going to work out.”

Jagged edges, that’s all he was on the inside, and there was nothing left that he could say. She’d made up her mind. She’d made it up before they’d even left Antioch, and he’d been too fucking thickheaded to realize it. He’d thought they could be different together. So, he stood there and watched Lucy walk away because there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.