It was true, I’d been too direct with her—so against the norm of how I typically behaved. I’d forced the confrontation, tried to push her decision right then and there. My fear had driven me to it. I’d wanted her to commit to a decision so I wouldn’t have to worry about our future. I’d wanted to be secure in the knowledge that she would stay and be with me and her feelings and emotions had not entered into the matter.

In short, I’d cornered her and left her no way out but to leave. A direct contradiction to Sun Tzu’s advice. When you surround an army, allow them an outlet to flee.

I’d been a moron and my brain was now scrambling to find a way to rectify this.

Two days later when I got home, it was just as she’d told me. Everything was gone. Her closet was empty. The drawers were bare except for a few random clothing items from a drawer it looked like she’d missed. No books on her shelves. Everything. Was. Gone. Everything.

She left the laptop I’d given her, (yet again). This was starting to become some sort of sick, weird pattern with us. With a howl of burning rage, I grabbed the fucking thing and almost smashed it against the wall before I stopped myself.

That would have been the most expensive temper tantrum I’d ever had. I never threw shit at the walls. I was one ragingly pissed-off dude who couldn’t think beyond the next minute of his own fury.

And in some ways, I did feel like I was losing my mind.

Chapter Seven

Text me when you get home, please, so we can talk.

Thankfully I’d had a couple hours to calm down when that showed up on my cell phone. It was midafternoon and I’d resisted the urge to go to work only because my head was killing me. I rubbed at the back of my neck. The impending migraine was definitely starting there. I hadn’t had one in weeks, goddamn it.

For a while they’d been an almost daily curse. In the past year they’d eased up a lot and in the past few months I could remember having only a few. But today it was almost certain that this one was going to floor me. I could already detect the telltale distortion at the edge of my vision. I snatched up my phone and replied.

Been home for hours. Come here after work?

Her reply came back to me almost immediately. How about we grab something to eat?

I almost retorted that we could eat here. Chef could have something ready, easily. The significance of her not wanting to come back here was not lost on me and I began to sweat, wondering if her choice of a public place meant she wanted to have the breakup talk. I sighed, deciding to let her have her way. What other choice did I have?

Just tell me where & when.

She answered, Dale & Boomer’s 6 p.m.? You still owe me a rematch on Dark Escape.

This was a good sign. She wanted to get together at an entertainment restaurant over at the outdoor mall in Orange. They had games of all kinds and a full-service restaurant and bar. Her suggestion of the game rematch made the entire thing seem positive.

I tried to put up with the headache pain for about an hour without taking anything, but it was a turning into a bad one and since I couldn’t resort to the normal heavy-hitting pain meds (which wouldn’t allow me to drive), I popped some milder pills, knowing that it would only take the edge off and do nothing for the visual aura that accompanied the pain. I normally didn’t like to resort to medications for my headaches, but I didn’t want to end up biting her head off because I was in pain, either.

I was already pissed enough at her as it was. But I vowed I wasn’t going to lose my temper and drive her further away. I wasn’t going to screw up on my all-important strategy again.

In the end, I popped the stronger pill and called for a car to take me over. She was there when I arrived, sitting on the leather bench in the waiting area, looking into her phone. Her long dark hair was clipped back away from her face, but she had changed out of her work clothes into jeans and a long-sleeved hooded T-shirt, which stretched across her breasts in the most delicious way. When she glanced up and saw me, she tucked her phone into her back pocket as she stood.

“Hi,” she said, standing in front of me awkwardly.

I hesitated, shifting the weight on my legs, just as awkward. “Hey.”

“Can we maybe go for a walk?”

“Out in the parking lot?”

“Well…yeah…just to talk for a minute?”

I shrugged. It was six o’clock, already dark, but not very chilly. I held the door open for her and we exited the restaurant to walk along the sidewalk that lined the outside perimeter of the mall.

“How was your trip?”

“Craptastic.”