After hours

Chapter Sixteen

Daniel glanced at the expensive wrist watch before pulling himself up and muttering a curse under his breath. He stood from the bed and turned on the small lamp beside my bed.

"Stay." I whined still curled under the warm duvet, holding strong onto the body heat he had left behind.

"Baby you know I want to."

"But?" I sighed knowing it was coming.

"I can't tonight."

I was half tempted to throw the ring in his face. He'd practically proposed tonight, and now he was going home to his wife. I guess it was partly my fault for accepting the ring in the first place. I wiggling my fingers and let the ring catch the light several times. "I can you just won't." I muttered.

"Ryan." He groaned.

My eyes shot up to his and I was suddenly filled with panic. "Sorry." I sat upwards and held the blanket around my bare body.

I don't know what I was sorry for. Why I was apologizing. He was the one who was leaving. But for some reason it was always like this. I was always afraid he would leave me and just never come back. Somewhere in my subconscious I knew he loved me and would do no such thing, doubted I would even let him go without a fight. But half of me was always worried. It's not like he needed me. If I got too annoying, or to be too much to handle it's not like he didn't have someone else waiting at home for him. I'll bed she never complained when he had to leave. But then again, she didn't have to deal with knowing that he was going to someone else's bed.

When this had started we both seemed to have a full deck. But since I had told Patrick and our relationship ended I felt like I was playing with only have a set. He easily had more cards than I, more options, more plans. Sometimes it felt like he'd even taken the cards from my deck and was now stuffed with aces and kings and all of the other cards that trumped my own. If I lost Daniel, I had nothing. Maybe not even a job. But he would always have his company, his wife, and that annoyingly adorable and huge lap dog of his.

"Don't be sorry. I'm sorry." He sighed and pulled open his drawer of my dresser. I watched him pull a new button down shirt out of the drawer and turned back to me. "You've got to stop ripping my shirts open like that." He joked but the smile didn't reach his eyes.

He waited for me to smile back but I didn't bother trying to put up a front. I wouldn't be a bitch about the situation. Partly from fear of losing him, and partly just because I knew what I was getting into from the start. But I wasn't going to pretend to be happy about it either.

"You know I love you, don't you?" He asked and I nodded.

I did know. I just didn't know who he loved more. He said he was going to leave her, he gave me a ring, and he took me all over the apartment for the next few hours. No room had been unscaved, no body part untouched, he'd been almost frantic in his need for me. And I had loved every moment of it. So I won, right?

If I won, why did I feel so shitty now as he pulled his trousers back on and kept his gaze to his cell phone on the end table. It'd gone off a few times during the night. Neither of us had dared to look at it though. In my apartment we could have this wonderful and perfect relationship. We were in a special little bubble all to ourselves. But contact with the outside world was like a needle. I could tell from his expression that the little blinking light on the corner of his phone had already popped the bubble.

"Do you love her?"

He sighed heavily. "You know I do Ryan. But you also know I don't love anyone the way I love you."