She reached across the table and squeezed my wrist. “By the way, I just want you to know how grateful I am that you’re here. And you’re helping. It makes me feel like I’m not alone. Like maybe for the first time ever, I don’t have to be completely responsible for every single thing. Thank you for that, Knox.”
I closed my eyes and tried not to throw up.
“Look. Like I said.” I had to grit my teeth to get through it. “Things are complicated, and part of that’s on me.”
She looked up and frowned. “Are you okay? You look tired.”
I was fucking exhausted. And full of self-loathing.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “But I think it’s time to move on.”
Got yourself a girl? The words echoed in my mind.
Her hand stilled on my arm. “Move on?”
“I’ve had a good time. I hope you have too. But we need to stop this thing before one of us gets too attached.”
She stared at me, those hazel eyes stunned and unblinking.
Fuck.
“You mean me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I mean what we’re doing is…” Scaring the shit out of me. “This thing between us has run its course.” Because I can’t trust myself with you, I thought.
“You brought me here to a public place to break up with me? Unbelievable.”
Her hand was gone now, and I knew I’d never feel it again. I didn’t know what had the power to break me faster, knowing that or knowing what would happen if I didn’t end this now.
“Look, Naomi, we both knew the score when we started this. I just think before one of us gets in over their head, we need to pull back.”
“I’m such an idiot,” she whispered, bringing her fingertips to her temples.
“I know you’ve got the custody hearing coming up next month, and I’m willing to still keep up the appearance that we’re together, if you think it’ll help you in court. And I’m still gonna be keeping an eye on you and Way until we know for sure who busted into your place.”
“How magnanimous of you,” she said, her tone icy.
I could handle angry. Hell, I could eat angry for breakfast every day. It was the tears, the hurt, the pain I couldn’t deal with.
“I said from the beginning I don’t do strings.” I’d warned her. I’d tried to do the right thing. Yet here she was looking at me like I’d deliberately wounded her.
And then suddenly the look was gone. The softness vanished from her face, the fire from her eyes.
“I understand,” she said. “I’m a lot. Waylay’s a lot. This whole thing is a lot. Even on my best day, I’m too much and yet not enough.” Her laugh was humorless.
“Don’t, Daisy,” I ordered before I could help myself.
She took a slow, deep breath then gave me a perfunctory smile that felt like a fucking cleaver to the heart. “I believe that’s the last time you get to tell me what to do and call me Daisy.”
I felt something rising inside me that had nothing to do with the relief I’d expected. No. This thing growing inside me felt like the white-hot edges of panic. “Don’t be like that.”
She slid out of the booth and stood up. “You didn’t have to do it this way. Out in public so I wouldn’t make some kind of scene. I’m a big girl, Knox. And someday, I’m going to find the kind of man who wants an uppity, needy pain in the ass. One who wants to wade into my mess and stay for the duration. Obviously, you’re not him. At least you told me that from the start.”
I stood too, feeling like I’d somehow lost control of the situation. “I didn’t say that.”
“Those are your words, and you’re right. I should have listened the first time you said them.”
She grabbed her purse and snatched the paper off the table in front of me.
“Thank you for your offer of pretending to be interested in me, but I think I’ll pass.” She wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“Nothing needs to change, Naomi. You can still work at the bar. You and Liza still have an arrangement. Everything else can stay the same.”
“I have to go,” she said, starting for the door.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her into me. It had felt so natural, and it had the other benefit of forcing her to look at me. The knot in my gut loosened temporarily when her gaze met mine.
“Here,” I said, yanking the envelope out of my back pocket and handing it over.
“What’s this? A list of reasons I wasn’t good enough?”