Free Bottled Up: April Fools For Love by Roxy Mews Page B

now.”
    That shook her from her self-centered haze. “What happened to her?”
    “An asshole.”
    “That doesn’t tell me anything.”
    Nate stacked three bags on top of each other. He repeated the process, and then proceeded to begin lugging all the suitcases toward the apartment building himself. “Not my story to tell.”
    Betty grabbed one of the towers and tried to pull it from him, he nearly growled at her. “I can help you carry these,” she said.
    “I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself. And besides. I have a bit of frustration to work out.” He hiked the bags higher under his arms. “And we both know you are done with helping me out with that.”
    Betty shut the trunk before running in front of him to open doors and press the elevator buttons. He barely glanced her way and her heart pounded harder.
    When the elevator shut and began dinging up the floors she tried again. “I didn’t mean to be insulting. I thought you wanted an easy out, and I was trying to be a grownup and give it to you.”
    He snorted. “Betty, I have had a lot of women try to be considerate of my feelings, but from my experience when a gal says thank you for the fuck, it means she got what she wanted out of the deal.”
    “Has that really happened to you?”
    “Just this morning as a matter of fact.”
    Ouch . Betty realized she might have come across as aloof, but that was the opposite of what she’d felt as her heart had pounded against his.
    They got to the third floor and as the doors began to slide open she realized he would run out and then they would part ways and it would be over. She slammed her hand on the emergency stop button. Blaring alarms had Nate dropping his armfuls to hold his hands over his ears.
    “Are you crazy?” he yelled at her.
    “You were going to leave,” she yelled back.
    “Instead I’ll go deaf. You’re right. This is much better than awkward after-sex time.”
    Betty tried to stand in front of the emergency button, but Nate reached behind her and pressed it to turn off the alarms and let the doors slide open. Betty didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t leave it like this, so she sat on one of the pieces of luggage. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll just sit here until you agree to talk to me.”
    Nate huffed, but he didn’t pause as he pulled up all the of rest of the bags and got them out the door to where Ang and Twila were standing in the entrance to the apartment watching. After he had the bags out and saw Betty wasn’t going to budge he started handing things to Ang who tossed them in the doorway but didn’t take her eyes off the scene outside of it.
    “Twila, call me if you need me. Ang, thanks again for helping Twila out.”
    Betty sat on the suitcase and waited for what Nate would say to her. When he turned it was obvious he was thinking of what that would be. His jaw flexed and his brows dipped. She wished she could see his dimples one more time, but she’d hurt him. It seemed they couldn’t have sex without one of them screwing up the relationship end of the deal.
    He stuck his arm in the elevator to keep the doors from closing. When they bumped back open, he pressed his hand against the edge and crouched in front of her. “It would have been good between us, but I’m not a sex toy. I’m a person. I had you on a pedestal, because I thought you were so much more than the women I’ve dated before. I wanted to be more for you. You were supposed to be the person who could see past the exterior. I wish it had stayed a fantasy. Then I could have believed someone wanted more from me than my body.”
    Nate stood. The doors closed and Betty sat on the suitcase, enclosed it a silent box. After she didn’t press any buttons the elevator began its descent to the lobby. She felt the floor shake as she descended, but couldn’t make herself move until the doors opened in the lobby.
    As if Nate’s words hadn’t hurt enough, she saw him walking away again. He ran his hand through his