My Hired Boyfriend (Completed)

27. One Drink Too Many

Chapter 27

           RECAP:

 “You can leave right now and live your life. You can go home and be happy,” I tell him.

            I cant breathe, my lungs constricting with every wavering pause as Coda stares at me.

            I expect Coda to yell at me some more, but what I don’t expect him to do is grab the cup from my hand with his good arm and hurl it into the sink, the resounding slam making me jump.

            And then we’re standing chest to chest, his hand on the back of my head to tilt my face to look up at him.

            There is no space between us and my knees go weak under his heated gaze.

            His eyes stare into mine, constantly swallowing hard as he looks more vulnerable and nervous  than I’ve ever seen him look before.

            “Home,” he says softly.  “Is where you are.”

~*~

             I stare at him-and I mean really stare at him.

            My eyes trail over the space furrowed between his eyebrows, his firmly pressed lips, the handsome contours of his jaw, and finally his eyes.

            His eyes are so dark, I can hardly see the green flecks in them, the amount of raw emotion in them making my knees weak with his arm tightly around me.

            Home.

            The feeling that spreads through my veins next feels like liquid fire, burning from  the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes with the look Coda is giving me.

            It is the fear, the raw desperation in his voice that sends my heart careening into cardiac arrest as my mind mulls over the possible meanings of that one simple sentence.

            Some where in the back ground, a cheesy version of ‘stay with me’ is being belted out and despite the chill in the air, I can’t feel anything but the firmness of his chest against mine, the heavy exhale of his warm breath on my lips…

            -And somehow, staring at Coda in this close proximity, I still can’t spit out the three simple words that have been plaguing my heart.

            “Y-you can’t- You can’t mean that,” I exhale lowly, tears threatening to spill.

            When Coda’s face drops, my hearts falls straight down along with it, the betrayal in his eyes like a knife twisting my insides.

            He steps away from me, his eyes hardening.

            “You’ve already made up your mind about me, huh?” he asks, scoffing when I look away.

            “I will always be the poor thug working at your father’s shop who is just doing you a favor in your picturesque life,” Coda snaps, his fists clenched.

            I don’t say anything.

            Deep down, I’m screaming out the fact that I don’t think that about him at all but my lips are sealed.