Big Daddy Wants Me

15: Waverly.

There’s nothing worse than being lectured by a complete jerk and knowing, on some level, that he might be right. Kyle’s words ring in my ears as I stomp around the bedroom—his bedroom, the one he offered me so easily—peeling off my sodden layers one by one and flinging them down with a splat.

A tourist, he called me.

Just a tourist.

Awesome! Guess I know now what the bar boss really thinks of me. I’ve been wondering for weeks, hoping so desperately that he sees me as someone important to him, maybe someone he’d want to keep, but instead Kyle has declared me completely temporary.

My heart gives a painful throb.

Maybe if I stay angry, I’ll never have to feel the knee-shaking force of how much that hurts me. Maybe if I cultivate this bitterness, Kyle will never realize that I’ve been pining after him like the world’s biggest love struck i***t, hoping for so much more.

“Jerk,” I mutter, trying to keep my anger up as I hop on one foot to tug off my soaking sweatpants. As my wet clothes peel away, my bare skin comes into view—mottled from the cold and covered in goosebumps. “And he listens to old man music.”

Yeah, even when I wrack my irritated brain, it’s hard to come up with reasons to hate Kyle. But they must exist, right? Just need to stay angry and think of some.

There’s a towel hanging on a hook on the bedroom door, and I wrap myself up like a pissed-off burrito, then fling the door open and stomp to the bathroom. Kyle’s gaze is heavy on me as I come into view, but I don’t turn to look at him. Don’t even breathe again until I’m in the bathroom, the door-slam drowned out by another roll of thunder.

Just a tourist.

He doesn’t want me to stay. Need to get that into my brain, even if the thought makes my stomach cramp and twist.

Just a tourist.

Vicious rain pelts the roof, the cabin walls, the bathroom window. Lightning flashes, dazzling the mountainside, and my whole body shivers at the recent memory of how icy that rain was—like a million needles digging into my skin. How quickly my clothes soaked through, and how easily the wind blew me left and right. Like a dried leaf tossed on the breeze.

In all my life, I’ve never felt so vulnerable.

I fumble for the shower, cranking it on and praying for it to heat up fast. I’m shivering so much beneath this towel, it’s like my skeleton is vibrating, and these vivid memories of the storm aren’t helping.

So… maybe Kyle was right.

It was dumb to go out in the storm; dumb to worry so much about a man who thinks I’m just a tourist. I mean, I might as well have declared my love for him through a loudhailer, it was so freaking obvious in that moment. Who did I think I was, crashing down the mountainside like that in search of my man? A female Rambo? What was I gonna do when I found him?

And Kyle didn’t want it. He bundled me back inside the cabin like a badly-behaved child, and scolded me for going out in the storm at all.

Yes! Stay mad.

Mad… and confused.

My jaw is tight as I step under the hot shower spray. At first, the stinging drops are almost too much to bear, so intense against my frozen body, but I force myself to stay in the warmth until feeling prickles back into my skin. I come back to life slowly, still shivering as I turn slowly beneath the shower, giving myself an angry pep talk. Need to keep this rage alive.

Because Kyle is a jerk. Even if what I did was risky; even if I don’t know the mountain trails as well as a local yet. Even if Kyle was clearly scared for me, so anxious to get me safe again that he could barely speak, he’s still a jerk.

Probably.

But by the time the bar boss knocks on the door, I’m slumped against the shower tiles, too exhausted by my freshly broken heart and too annoyed with myself to move, possibly ever again.

The door opens a crack—just enough for Kyle to speak through the gap. “You okay in here? Getting warmed up?”

A sigh gusts out of me, but I can’t bring myself to answer. Speaking a single sentence would be a gigantic effort.

There’s a pause, then the door creaks open wider by another inch. Kyle’s next question comes louder, like he needs to call for me across a great distance rather than this cozy little bathroom. “Waverly? You okay?”

Nope. No, I’m not.

And when Kyle curses and flings the door completely open, I’m too tired and sad to even bother covering myself. I just stare at the bar boss, buck-ass nude, my chin wobbling with the effort not to cry.