Tobias: This is not our story, Cecelia. This is not our fucking story!
I shoot off my own text in hopes to start some damage control.
I’ll be home soon. I’m cashing out now. It’s just a book, Tobias.
Tobias?
Tobias?
When I get no response, I dial his number and am sent straight to voicemail. Panicking, I cash out and race to my Audi, dreading what I’m in for. I’d placed too much importance on the book—which clearly paints him as the selfish and egotistical villain—which is how I viewed him for so long. For the better part of the time he’s been back, he’s been fighting with something, something underlying that he hasn’t yet put a voice to due to conversations I’ve refused him. His ‘bad’ days seem to happen more often than not, and I’m sure it’s because of his isolation. That combined with the fact that he’s all but abandoned the brotherhood, his purpose, the thing that’s defined him and who he is for over two decades to play house with me. All he’s living for now is me, and I’ve given him next to nothing for it. No matter how strong of a man he is, this transition is getting the best of him. I told him I wanted a king, not a coward, but what if that demand has hindered his ability to be open with me?
Nothing gets to me more than seeing him this vulnerable, this once impenetrable man who I had to fight for full sentences from, for anything other than cruel indifference. It’s not his looks or our sexual draw—though its potency hasn’t waned in the least—it’s what he’s let me get glimpses of in the past, the romantic he revealed in the clearing, our resulting relationship after because of it. It’s his love for his brothers, his dedication to his cause that drains my iron will, day by day.
It’s his humanity, his empathy, his flaws, and the fact that I’m the woman he chose, the one he trusts to reveal this side of himself to that has my guilt multiplying.
But I demanded the man I met, and in a lot of ways, I’m not the same woman. Is it hypocritical of me to think that the last years haven’t changed him? Because at this point, I sure as hell can’t say the same. He all but told me he had closed himself off completely after Dominic died and became a sort of machine. But this openness, now, giving me this much in so little time, lets me know something is going on inside of him far more haunting than what he’s revealed to me.
Speeding toward the house, my anxious heart pounding, I make the last turn on my road when I catch sight of him, running in jeans and… Oh. My. God.
“What the hell?” Slowing to his pace, I roll down my window as Tobias runs like his ass is on fire in my kitchen apron, a hot pink ribbon secured around his waist. He’s covered in sweat and what looks like… flour coating half his face and dusting his hair.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
He stops his run when I again call his name as if he’s in some sort of stupor, hyper-focused on something that’s not here and now. I pull over and exit the car, a gust of wind slapping me in the face. When I approach him, it’s clear he’s freezing, his olive skin tinged red from the bitter cold, and he reeks of gin.
“You’re drunk? I thought this was date night?”
“I’m…Trésor…” he hangs his head and jerks me to him before burying his head in my neck. “I couldn’t be there.”
“At my house? Why are you drunk?”
“I’m not drunk…I am…a little. Doesn’t matter.”
“Get in the car, Frenchman, your skin is like ice.”
He ignores my orders and releases me. “You compare me to this…Ralph,” he grits out with disgust.
“Tobias, it’s just a book.”
“That’s not us.”