Drink Me

35. IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK

IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK

"Let's sit," Riley suggested, sitting on the sofa.

But Nicole didn't move. She followed his figure with her eyes and kept them fixed on him until she eventually sat on the coffee table, a distance from the man.

"What's going on?" she asked again, but now there was no sympathy in her voice, only worry.

Riley repressed the need to hold her hands, he had lost that privilege. Summoning all his courage, he spoke. "Things have become a bit hectic, messy almost, in my life. From work, mainly..."

Nicole tilted her head to the side, a deadpan expression on her face. "Are you breaking up with me?" she asked and, she sounded hasty to get it over with.

Riley stopped his badly rehearsed speech as his mouth bobbed open and close a couple of times, like a fish gasping for words instead of water.

"Is it because of Alice?" Nicole's merciless questioning continued, knocking the air out of Riley's lungs.

"What? No!" the man replied, still taken aback by Nicole's reaction. "Why would you say that?"

But the woman didn't respond to that.

"How long have you liked her?" she pressed.

Riley took a deep calming breath, trying to gain back the reins of the conversation.

"Nicky, I don't have feelings for Alice," he denied.

A bitter sneer filled the room as Nicole shifted away from Riley. "I might be only a barista, might not have that big brain of yours, but I at least I have the sensibility to feel what goes on around me. So please don't feed me that 'my life's too complicated' crap."

Riley broke the gaze with her for the first time, his eyes now downcast on his lap.

If only she knew.

He had promised himself to tell her the truth, but then decided it wasn't worth hurting her with it if he had to let her go anyway. He had come up with a poorly engineered excuse about work that he didn't even have the time to tell. Maybe this was for the best. He needed her as far away from him as possible.

He wet his dry lips and looked at Nicole again. "Alice and I kissed," he admitted. "It was months ago, we were drunk. You and I had only been on a couple of dates," he added in a pathetic attempt to make it sound OK.

He should have told her about the second time he and Alice had kissed when they had slept together in his bed, but those big blue eyes, staring at him in resigned disappointment turned him into the biggest coward in history.

"Does Aidan know?" Nicole asked.

Riley shook his head.

A veil of tears covered the woman's eyes, but she refused to let them fall. "Did you sleep with her?"

At that, Riley sat up straighter and his eyes grew wider. "No, Nicky, I swear!" His tone was urgent for Nicole to believe him.

He reached out and selfishly took her hands, to comfort her and himself, and to his surprise, she didn't snap them away.

"Nicky, I never lied about my feelings for you," he said honestly.

Nicole nodded, slowly. "I know," she said and removed her hands from Riley's hold, leaving him feeling suddenly cold. "But you once told me that love is not enough, sometimes life gets in the way. I guess it's true..."

Riley was in owe at how rational and confident her voice sounded.

"Obviously what's getting in our way, it's stronger than your feelings for me..."