Page 108 of Mixed Signals
My eyes snap up to his. “Where’s Emma?”
Caleb looks at me like I’ve just asked what his horoscope of the day is. “What?”
“Emma,” I explain slowly. I don’t think I imagined her with him, but I haven’t been sleeping very well lately. “The woman you were laughing with just outside.”
“Oh.” He looks over his shoulder. “Oh, yeah. I ran into her on the way in.”
“Hm.”
He turns back to me and takes in the look on my face. I don’t have a mirror, but it’s probably a cross ofI just ate an oatmeal raisin cookie and I thought it had chocolate chips in itwiththere are no cookies left in the jar.
His eyes narrow. “What’s that sound about?”
“What sound?”
“Thehm.”
I shrug and try to push against the ache that swells the longer I look at him. “Nothing. It was just a sound I made.” I grab a paper cup from beneath the counter with too much force. When I set it down, it’s crushed on one side. I toss it into the trashcan and grab another. “Do you want tea or coffee?”
“I want to talk about why you’re so upset.”
“I’m not upset.” My voice shakes at the end like the traitor it is.
“Layla.”
“Great, I’ll get you a coffee.”
“Layla,” he says again, softer this time. He reaches for my wrist before I can spin my way to the espresso machine. His hand squeezes and I angle my chin up, intent on a mask of absolute indifference. But the hot, embarrassed, ugly feeling in my chest spreads the longer I look at him, and I feel my bottom lip tremble. His eyes glance down and hold. His entire body collapses inward, curling towards me.
“Layla,” he repeats, with a note of pleading this time.
“No.” I pull my hand out of his grasp. I don’t know what I’m saying no to. This day, maybe. This entire situation. This jealousy and sadness and the inescapable feeling that I’m constantly turning in the wrong direction. I want to stop being afraid, but I don’t knowhow.I want to believe Beatrice about trust, butI don’t know how.I want to accept that maybe I’ve finally made the right choice in a man, butI don’t know how.
I clear my throat. “There’s coffee cake in the back,” I say under my breath. “I’ll be right back.”
I disappear through the door before he can say anything else. It’s easier, back here, to press my palms against my forehead and try to collect the scattered bits of myself. I breathe in deep through my nose and try to count to twelve. I attempt to channel some of those old yoga videos I sent to Stella a lifetime ago.
This will fade, right? This feeling? It has to.
“Layla, wait a second. I want to—”
Caleb crashes through my back door and stumbles right into me, the both of us collapsing against my island. The last time we were back here together, he had me hitched up against the wall by the fridge, his arm banded under my ass and his mouth at my neck. Wet, sucking kisses that I wore the mark of for days.
I think he’s remembering too, because I feel his shaky breath against the back of my neck as he holds me steady, his hands squeezing gently at my upper arms. We’re pressed together shoulders to hips, his chest against my back.
We stand there together and breathe. It’s been almost a week since he’s touched me in any way and I can’t believe how much I’ve already forgotten. The way it feels when he drops his head against my neck. How warm and solid and good he feels.
“Layla.” He breathes my name against the hollow behind my ear, nose nudging. Both of his arms wrap around my middle and he squeezes. “Why are you upset?”
“I’m not,” I say immediately, voice thick, hands trembling. I should pull myself out of his arms. I should act like I’m fine. But I can’t. Ican’t.
“You are. Why?”
Because I saw you with someone else and I didn’t like it, I think.Because I don’t know how to stop being afraid.
“I don’t know,” I say instead. A lie. “I’m not.” Another lie.
He pulls back with a sigh but keeps his hands firmly on my arms. He turns me until I have no choice but to look at him. The stern set of his brows and the lines bracketing his mouth.
