Page 172 of The Virgin Romance Novelist Chronicles
She picked up her head and I swear venom shot out of her mascara-drenched eyes as she shouted at me. “Well, it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”
I sat on the bed to be closer to her, but she scooted away. She was still in her coat, and it didn’t look like she had anything under it.
Christ. I ran my hand over my face and gathered my thoughts.
“Rosie, I’m going to try to talk to you in a rational, calm voice. Can you please listen to me before getting emotional?”
“Emotional?” she screamed, as she sat up in bed. She pulled her hair out of her high ponytail, shoved her hand through the top, and pulled so her hair was sticking straight up in the air. Her eyes were wild and her movements erratic. I was scared for my life. “How can I not get emotional when I walked in on you and Tasha making out?”
Yup, this wasn’t going to be fun. God, I hate that she assumed the worst.
“First of all”—I held up my hand as I spoke to her, trying to calm her inner crazy—“we were not making out, not even close to it.”
“Likely story.” She crossed her arms and puffed up her chest.
I rubbed my forehead and took a deep breath. “Rosie, why would I make out with Tasha? What on earth would possess me to do that?”
“Well, you did it right after we had sex for the first time.”
And there it was, the unspoken elephant in the room that had always put a black mark on our young relationship. The Tasha incident.
To be fair, it wasn’t all my fault. Rosie and I had sex for the first time a few months back, and it was by far, the best thing that ever happened in my life. I had been wanting to make Rosie mine for a while, and finally, finally she gave in to my flirting and the passes I was making at her.
When I claimed her lips, and pressed our bodies together for the first time, I was immediately lost in her love. I believed right then and there, there would be no turning back for me. Rosie was it, she would be my girl for as long as I lived.
Was our first time a little awkward because she kept asking questions? Yes, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Watching her face light up when her orgasm took over her body and listening to the sweet sounds pop out of her mouth would forever be engrained in my mind.
Afterward, I wanted to hold her all night, I wanted to continue to explore her body, I wanted to tell her I was in love with her, but then, she checked her voicemail . . .
Literally seconds after I pulled out of her, she had her phone in her hand, listening to a voicemail from another man.
Try being a man who’d been pining after a girl for so long, then finally being able to get lost in her sweet skin, only to be brushed off right after you came inside her. I was fucking wrecked.
The call was from Atticus, the man with the busted balls, who she’d danced with and actually had a decent connection with.
She then told me he wanted to go out with her again.
I could still smell her on my skin when she told me this. I could still feel her pussy wrapped around my cock.
At that moment, it felt like she’d used me to lose her virginity, that despite what I’d seen in her eyes, she actually had no intention whatsoever of being with me. So, I did what any other broken-hearted man with an ounce of pride left inside would have done: I went on the defensive. I acted like what we just did hadn’t rocked my world and flipped it upside down.
I was angry, completely and utterly devastated, but I didn’t show it.
Instead of being a man and claiming her as mine, I took what was left of my shattered heart and moved on. Was it the right thing to do? No, but I was human and humans made mistakes.
“Fine, you want to talk about what happened with Tasha a few months ago? Let’s get into it. Let’s rip it open.” I was angry. I probably didn't have the right to be angry now, because I knewnowthat she'd never had any intention of calling Atticus back. I knewnowthat she'd been a devastated mess who'd cried for days, and had felt so betrayed by seeing me move out with Tasha. But for some stupid reason, my anger had resurfaced, and I waited for her to answer me. If we were going to fight, might as well get it all out.
In a hoity voice, Rosie said, “If you were a character in a book, you would have lost all chance of becoming a book boyfriend. You broke the cardinal sin in every romance novel: you were with another woman after you were with me.”
I lost it. “News flash, Rosie, we’re not living in a romance novel. This is real fucking life, not some fictional story you read on your Kindle. Do you know what happens in real life? We get hurt, we act on those hurt feelings, and then we do stupid shit we will regret later. And I didn’t even fuck her! Not everything is going to end as a happily ever after. You have to work for love, you have to earn it, and you sure as hell have to maintain it.”
She was silent as she let my words sink in. I was nervous that I might have been too harsh on her. Tears streamed down her face, and I mentally kicked myself in the crotch for my outburst. She was already on edge, I didn’t have to lose my cool in front of her, especially after what she saw.
I ran my hand through my hair and broke the silence between us. “Listen, love. I’m sorry—”
She held up her hand to stop me, and her tear-streaked face met mine. “You hurt me, Henry. You hurt me the day I found Tasha in your room with you, and that feeling has weighed heavily on me ever since. I was coming home that night to tell you that I realized I’d been wrong. And that I finally understood that you wanted me.Lovedme. And then to see you had already decided we weren’t worth fighting for? That you’d chosen your ex-girlfriend over me? Seeing her on you tonight brought back all those horrible emotions of pain and self-doubt and not being good enough for you.”
I couldn’t have felt like any bigger of an ass.
