“No.”
He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her from the floor. She protested with a fist on his shoulder. He kicked the door shut behind him and set her down. She hit him again in the middle of his chest. “What kind of brutish bullshit was that?”
“The I just got out of jail kind.” He stormed toward her tiny kitchen.
She followed with quick, padded footsteps. “What are you doing?”
“I’m starving.”
He opened her fridge, perused the sad, meager contents, and settled on a single wrapped piece of string cheese. He ripped open the plastic and bit into it like a banana. Three angry bites, and he’d devoured the whole thing.
She crossed her arms. “There. You’ve eaten. Now go.”
“Not without you.”
Colton tried to draw her close, but she stepped away, her hands covering her face. “Stop, Colton, please.”
“For God’s sake.” He jerked his hands through his hair and laced his fingers on top of his head. “I understand what you’re doing, because it’s what you do, but dammit, I can’t do this right now. I’m exhausted. I’m still hungry. I am in desperate need of a shower because I was forced to sit for two hours next to a sweaty hipster named Jacob—spelled Jacob but pronounced Jah-cobe, which he told me no fewer than four times—and there are about a thousand reporters foaming at the mouth to get to me. All I want is to go home, crawl into bed with you, and sleep for about ten hours. So, please. Get whatever you need because there’s a car waiting for us outside.”
“No. I’m breaking up with you.”
He snorted. “No, you’re not.”
“I’m leaving Nashville.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m taking the job in D.C.”
“No, you’re not.” He hastened to where she stood with her arms crossed and her lips thin. He traced them with his thumb. “And I’m not letting you break up with me.”
“That’s not how this works. If I want to break up with you, then we’re broken up.”
He quirked an eyebrow and gazed down at her pouty, upturned face. “Wow. Kick a man when he’s down, why don’t you? I was just arraigned on assault charges for you, and now you’re dumping me?”
He meant it as a joke. She didn’t take it as one. She unfurled her arms, only to toss her hands in the air. “I’m dumping you because you were just arraigned on assault charges for me!”
“I’m the one who hit him, Gretchen. You didn’t ask me to. I did this all on my own.”
“Because of me.”
At his growled argh, she stomped to her small kitchen table and spun around her laptop. “Look at this.” She pointed to an article on the screen detailing his arrest with his mug shot front and center. “This is going to follow you forever.”
“You’re a real comfort, you know that?” He winked to let her know he was, once again, kidding.
But once again, she didn’t get the joke. “I am poison to you, Colton.”
He tipped his head to the ceiling and ground the heels of his hands into his tired eyes. “We’re really doing this right now?”
“The sunshiny one doesn’t fall for the grumpy one. The grumpy one corrupts the sunshiny one. That’s what I’ve done to you.”
Her words and the tremor in her voice brought his gaze back to hers. He didn’t like what he saw there—sad resignation and dogged determination.
“You asked why I ran away from you after the wedding. It wasn’t because I didn’t want you. It was because I did want you. I fell for you, too, that night. But I knew even then that someone like you deserves better than someone like me and my particular brand of chaos. Trust me, you’re better off without me.”
“Your particular brand of chaos has made me happier than I’ve been in a long, long time, so maybe let me be the judge of whether I’ll be better off without it.”
“You’ll get over it. Think of the songs you’ll write. The best albums are based on heartbreak.”
The first real tug of fear settled in his gut. “Are you . . . are you really doing this? This isn’t just some more of your bullshit?”
She stormed to the front door and pulled it open. “Just go, Colton. Please.”
“Dammit, I love you!”
She sucked in a breath, and for one second, he thought maybe she was going to drop the whole act. But then she dipped her face to the ground. “And there are a million women who would die to help you move on.”