Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 103918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lex
I wanted it all to be a bad dream. Even the part where Gideon had told me he loved me.
Because that had hurt like a son of a bitch.
And I hadn't exactly dealt with it in any kind of reasonable way. I sighed as I realized I was giving myself too much credit. I'd pretty much gone batshit crazy on Gideon.
Of course, if that hadn't been enough, there was always the fact that my brother had beaten the shit out of Gideon because he'd mistakenly thought Gideon was attacking me when, in fact, he'd only been trying to keep me from hurting myself. I knew that now. But hindsight was pretty much wasted on me. I couldn't read a situation in the present, so what did it matter if I could read it after the fact?
Gideon loved me. Even as I had the thought, that voice in my head—the one that had always reminded me that no one had ever wanted me just for me—rejected it.
But for once, I shut that useless noise in my head down. The voice might've been right, but my reaction hadn't been. Even if Gideon thought he loved me, he hadn't deserved my dismissal. I could've saved my freak-out moment for after I'd been alone. But unfortunately, that wasn't how freak-outs worked and, once again, Gideon had been witness to one of mine. Then he'd been bearing the brunt of King's fists. That had been my fault too. If I hadn't overreacted to Gideon's declaration, King never would have gone after him like he had.
God, how had I fucked this up so badly?
"Get over yourself," I berated myself as I sat up and swung my legs over the bed. My head spun, but it wasn't enough to stop me from climbing to my feet. "King?" I called. I was relieved to hear footsteps coming toward the bedroom. I ran a hand over the shirt and pants I was wearing. They felt like the same ones I'd been wearing right before Gideon and I had made love. Since anything was better than being naked, I reached out a hand and began the slow process of moving forward. It had been a few weeks since I'd been in the master bedroom of Birch Cabin, but I still remembered that there were thirty-two steps from the bed to the stairs that led to the first level. I'd made it about ten steps when the footsteps that had been getting closer came to a stop.
"King, I need you to take me back to see Gideon. I have to talk to him. I have to make him understand."
"Understand what?"
I froze at the sound of Gideon's voice. I'd just assumed that after the fiasco with King and my poorly timed hypoglycemic event, Gideon had kicked us out of his house and King had taken me back to Birch Cabin.
"Are we at your place or mine?" I asked before realizing it really didn't matter. Gideon was here. That was all I cared about.
"Aren't they both my place now?" Gideon asked. There was no missing the anger in his voice. I didn't understand him at first, but when I replayed the question in my head a couple of times, things clicked. King's untimely arrival, Gideon referring to Birch Cabin as his…
"Gideon," I began, but then realized I didn't know what the hell to say. I'd fucked up on every level with this man. I’d lashed out at him so many times over things he hadn't even done…
"Why, Lex?" Gideon asked. The anger had switched over to something else. Disappointment, maybe. Hurt, even. I felt sick to my stomach, though I knew there would be no hypoglycemic event rescuing me from having to face the truth.
"I don't…" I murmured. For some reason, I couldn't collect my thoughts. Looking through his eyes, all I could see was how crazy I must have appeared. Had I always been this way? Maybe deep down, I'd known all along why people hadn't wanted to be with me.
"I never wanted a penny from you," Gideon said fiercely. "Our relationship was never about that. Or did you think it was? Were you trying to buy me—"
"No!" I interrupted. I took a step forward, but my hand met with nothing but air. I could tell he was in front of me, but I had no way of knowing how far away he was. I desperately wished he’d take my hand, but I knew that he had absolutely no reason to. "No, Gideon."
"Why did you do this, Lex? I loved you. You made me fall in love with you…"
His voice caught on what I was terrified sounded like half sob. But I couldn’t know for sure if I wasn’t able to touch him.
Loved. He’d said loved. With a “d.”
Past tense.
God, what if it had been true? What if he really had loved me? What if I'd finally found everything I'd been looking for my entire life and I’d thrown it away because I'd been too afraid to reach for it, to hold on to it? And worse, if it were true, I'd hurt Gideon horribly by rejecting him.