Page 60 of The Spare
At some point in the night, something shifted. Marcus no longer met my occasional glances, avoiding them for the most part. It didn’t make any sense; we left his place in a tizzy. Something over the last couple of hours had affected him. His playfulness around me was gone.
“Sloan, why are you seeing Jay Sachi?” Henry looked at me with an almost judgmental curiosity during a lull in the conversation. We’d all settled at a table, and I was distracted trying to backtrack and figure out what was wrong with Marcus.
I could practically feel the thud in my chest. Marcus’s eyes narrowed on me. I didn’t look in his direction.
Instead of answering, I looked at Xander in shock that he would ever disclose anything about my dating life to Henry. He put his hands up in defense. “He was there when you texted me.”
“She’s not seeing him,” Penelope scoffed before I could answer. She was the only one fully aware of what was going on between Marcus and me, and she knew what tonight was supposed to be. “He’s a client. I was there too.”
“Why would you just assume?” I snapped. As if I needed the night to take another unexpected and unwelcome turn. I woke up this morning expecting to be having sex with Marcus by this point. Instead, he could hardly look at me. And now, my brother was berating me about a client. I kept my voice steady and tried not to ruin the night by unleashing my pent-up aggression on Henry. “Do you think I’m too stupid to know he’s a walking red flag?”
“That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry.” Henry course-corrected immediately. “I was just surprised.”
“Who is this?” Marcus finally spoke up. His tone crackled with annoyance. I looked over at him and he finally made eye contact. He was angry. But, as always, composed.
“He’s someone I went to school with,” Xander said, his eyes darting suspiciously between Marcus and me. “He wasn’t really friends with Sloan.” That was partly true. Whatever Xander picked up on, he immediately went on defense for me.
“If I remember correctly, he was only interested in one thing with you.” Henry laughed, not realizing how unfunny he was. “And it sure as hell wasn’t friendship.”
“As interesting as rehashing every person that works with Sloan is, I’m already sick of the first one,” Xander groaned loudly and pointed to Penelope. She rolled her eyes. “Can we move on?”
Xander looked at me with some disappointment. He knew he was missing something and hated being left out of the loop. Not missing a beat, he changed the subject. He knew something was going on.
We called it a night an hour or so later and decided we would meet for breakfast before they left the next day. Henry and Xander headed back to their hotel. That left Marcus and me for what was shaping up to be a very different car ride.
“What’s wrong?” After a few minutes of awful silence, I finally asked as we rode back to my place.
Tension radiated off him. His jaw was tight, and he looked forward. “Sloan, that can’t happen again.”
A part of me was expecting it. Knowing that alleviated some of the disappointment, but it did little to blunt the painful sting of it. The building irritation from the entire night, mixed with my anger at him for suddenly turning on a dime, was getting dangerously close to boiling over.
“Is this about Jay?” It came out sounding patronizing. I didn’t mean it to, but the rejection hurt. And the hurt quickly became spite.
“No,” he spat, almost offended that I would assume he was jealous. He’d spent the last few weeks running off any possible date I might have. It was a safe assumption. Although, thinking back to the night, his mood darkened before that conversation ever came up.
“Then what the hell is wrong?” My voice was noticeably louder, with no indication of coming down.
“You can’t be this short-sighted.” His voice was strained with frustration. The accusation only added to the anger seeping into me like poison. “We can’t fuck up fifteen years.”
He wasn’t talking about us; he was talking about his relationship with Henry. And mine with Xander. In my anger, I chose to ignore that he had a point. We hadn’t talked about any of this, and we probably should have. But I felt rejected. To pile on, he had the audacity to call me short-sighted. As if I was some silly heiress who didn’t think anything through.
“I’m short-sighted?” My tone was sharp enough to draw blood. All the heat in my body had found its way to my face. “I’m not the one who felt up my best friend's little sister before thinking about how it might affect him.”
His eyes were alight with emotion, but he maintained his stoic demeanor. “Sloan,” he warned, the coolness in his voice adapted a razor’s edge.
I felt like I was spinning out, and his ability to control his anger made me feel like a child for letting mine loose.
“Just to make sure we’re clear—I’m good to go ahead and sleep with Jay?” My hypothetical got just the reaction I wanted. His eyes flashed with anger, and his body went rigid like the words hurt to hear. “Or anyone, for that matter.”
“Stop,” he commanded firmly.
“You’re fine with that? His hands up my dress, his lips between my thig—”
“Sloan.” His voice boomed in the confined space of the town car. It was the first crack in his facade. I could keep going and let this thing boil over, or I could stop.
I let out a deep sigh and tried to maintain control. If it didn’t hurt him, I wouldn’t allow it to hurt me. I gripped my hands together tightly on my lap and held my tongue. After a minute of silence, my heart rate slowed to something closer to normal.
“You’re right,” I yielded. I didn’t want to. I wanted to fight.
