Home > Hate Story(16)

Hate Story(16)
Author: Nicole Williams

I didn’t just want her to hate me—I needed her to hate me.

“You seemed available,” I said, finally answering her question.

“Available?” Her forehead creased.

“Yes, available,” I continued, working my jaw. “Whenever I sent you a message, you’d get back to me right away. It didn’t seem to matter how early or how late. What day of the week. What holiday. You always got back to me quickly.”

At first, she digested what I’d just said. When she bit down on the chunk of ice, I knew she understood. Her face fell for a moment, almost like she wanted to cry, then it moved into something I was used to seeing directed my way.

“You choose me because I had no life. That’s what you’re saying?” Anger burned in her eyes. Disdain pulsed from her in waves, but I thought I could still see it if I looked really closely—the sadness she was disguising.

I wanted to drive my butter knife through my eye for making her feel like that, but it was better this way. She was better if she kept me at a distance.

“You seemed like you didn’t have a lot of commitments, that’s what I’m saying,” I said. “The fewer commitments you had, the more you could commit yourself to this.”

When I waved between us, she crossed her arms and looked away. With the darkness seeping in through the windows and the gentle flicker of candlelight glowing between us, it was hard to tell, but her eyes looked different now. Like she might be about to cry.

Shit. This was exactly why I wanted to keep emotions out of the equation.

I wanted to say something, though I didn’t know what, then our dinners arrived. Nina barely seemed to notice the plate the waiter settled in front of her.

I needed to leave. I’d had enough for one night. If I stayed any longer, hurting her even more was inevitable.

“Would you take a picture of us?” I slid my phone from my jacket and held it out for the waiter.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw Nina’s eyes narrow like I’d somehow betrayed her. When the waiter stepped back from the table, lifting the phone at us, I leaned across the table a little. Nina stayed where she was.

“We wouldn’t want to forget to ‘document’ our first date.” She didn’t sound pissed, just kind of removed.

I should have wanted to sigh with relief that we were back on track. But I felt something squeeze in my chest when that cool removal hit me.

After the waiter took the picture and handed my phone back, I rose from my chair.

“I’ve got to go,” I told her. She wouldn’t look at me. That was a good thing, I told myself. “I have a meeting.”

“Go ahead.” She waved in my direction and folded her napkin into her lap. “I have nowhere else to be, no one else to be with, so I’ll just stay and eat dinner alone. Wait for your message to come in, so I can drop nothing to get back to you. Be your beck-and-call girl. That’s me.”

I came around the side of the table. I was looking at her, but I knew she wouldn’t look back. I’d done the job of pushing her away, and I’d done it well. “I’ll call Ezra. He can drive you home when you’re done.”

Her jaw tightened. “That’s okay. The bus works just fine. All hours too.”

The thought of her on the bus, alone, at night . . . it made something that felt like a vise tighten around my neck. “I don’t think so. I don’t like the idea of you on the bus.”

I didn’t miss the way her hands curled in her lap. “Why? Because some other foreigner might try to lure me away from you to earn a green card?”

Afraid someone else might take you away from me, afraid something might happen to you, afraid you might take yourself away from me. Yes to all of it. “I need you to stay safe.”

“Why?”

Instead of telling her the truth, I went with the opposite. I went with the lie because wasn’t that why we were there? A lie. A falsity. A deception.

“Because I like to protect my investments.”

According to the Max Sturm Approved Timeline, it was time for our second date. Since he got to plan the first one at a restaurant that couldn’t even get a hamburger right, I was choosing today’s.

After he’d ditched me at dinner, I invited Ezra over to eat Max’s dinner. A lobster tail that size should not end up in a dumpster, plus I didn’t want to eat alone. I did enough of that at home. He did, albeit reluctantly, then he escorted me home as Max had instructed. On the bus, as I’d demanded.

Max was paying me to marry him, but there was no amount of money he could offer me to submit to him. I would not be ordered, instructed, or manipulated.

Dinner. Just thinking about it made me slump into the park bench a little deeper. What a disaster. It had started out great—or good, at least. It seemed like we might have been getting along, which was an added bonus since we’d be spending a lot of time together over the next few years, but then I felt like the rug was pulled out from beneath me.

He’d gone from warm to cool. From open to distant. From kind to mean. I didn’t know Max well enough to determine which of those traits he embodied most, but I wasn’t sure he’d let me get close enough to figure that out.

Which was a good thing, I told myself. I didn’t want to get too close. I didn’t want him to get too close. Distance was a very good thing in our situation. Removal was even better. We could be amiable with each other but had to keep walls up and borders drawn for this to work.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and like the Pacific Northwest was inclined to do in the fall, it was drizzling. Maybe not the best day for an outdoor date, but contrary to what Max thought, I had commitments. Like my day job.

I managed to check the new phone Max had picked up for me and keep hold of five leashes at the same time. I hadn’t missed a call or text from him, but he was late. I wondered if this was his way of paying me back for being late last week. Probably. He seemed like the type who believed in payback. Although while I had public transportation to blame for my tardiness, Max was not the public transportation type.

With Kate’s help, I’d managed to open one of those silly social media accounts. I had a whopping twelve friends already which, sadly, was more than I thought I would have. When I’d posted the picture of Max and me at dinner—Kate had added the commentary—I’d received a myriad of comments ranging from Wow! to Damn girl.

   
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