Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [89]
“He went there to recover from a broken heart,” I said crisply. “But since you seem able to move on from a woman so easily, you probably can’t understand that.” I rose to my feet again. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to work.”
“Wait just a damn minute.” He rose, too, looking irritable now. “Who got out of bed in the middle of the night as soon as you asked for help? Who faced a firing squad of laughing cops to get your arrest erased? Who’s been driving the Two- Five crazy for the past couple of days because of what happened to you in their precinct?”
“Oh, you’d drive them crazy about that no matter who got mugged and found a severed hand there.”
“Well . . .” He backed down a little. “Okay, that’s probably true.”
“Anyhow, now we’re square,” I said tersely.
He frowned. “We’re square for what?”
“We broke up, then you got me out of jail.” Jeff’s interpretation of events had stung more than I’d realized. “So we’re even now.”
“How are we even?” he asked in bewilderment.
“You don’t owe me anything else.”
“I didn’t ‘owe’ you that,” he snapped.
“Fine,” I snapped back. “Then I guess I owe you now.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Tell me the truth.” Still smarting from the humiliation of Jeff’s comments, I said, “Did you help me the other night because you felt guilty?”
“Guilty? About what?”
“About dumping me,” I said impatiently.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t dump you! I . . . I . . .” His blue eyes suddenly blazed with surprise in his dark face, and a look of sheer astonishment replaced his angry expression. “I dumped you?” After a stunned pause, he sat back down on the steps, looking thunderstruck. “Oh, my God. I hadn’t thought of it that way. I guess you’re right. I, uh . . . I dumped you, didn’t I?”
I folded my arms across my chest as I looked down at him. “It’s always good when we can clear up these little misunderstandings.”
“I dumped you,” he repeated, looking at me in amazement.
“And obviously that’s something I particularly enjoy hearing repeated. Go on, say it again,” I said, as he continued staring at me. “It makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside.”
He was still looking at me with a bemused expression.
“Lopez?” I prodded.
Lost in his own thoughts, he gave a little start. Then he sighed. “I’m sorry. I had no idea that you felt that way. I mean, that you thought I had dumped you.”
“You did dump me.”
“Well, yes, I know that now.”
“How could you not know it before?” I demanded.
He made a vague gesture. “I didn’t think of it as dumping you.”
“God, I had no idea how much of a . . . guy you could be,” I said in disgust.
“Honestly, I thought of what happened as . . .” He ran his hands over his face, then he rested his chin on them as he contemplated something invisible. “I thought of it more like . . . I don’t know . . .” He shrugged as he searched for an example. “Born Free, when they decide Elsa really can’t be domesticated and they’ve got to let her go.”
“What?”
“Or A Beautiful Mind, when they realize they’ve got to lock up Russell Crowe.”
“I’m not liking the comparisons,” I said.
“It’s like wanting peanut butter so much that you eat it in your dreams. But when you’re awake, you know you’ll go into anaphylactic shock if you touch the stuff.” He gave himself a little shake and stood up. “Do you see what I’m saying?”
“Something about food allergies, mental illness, and a fear that I’ll attack livestock?”
“Exactly.”
“What the hell are you talking ab—” I gasped as he suddenly backed me against the wall and braced his hands on either side of me.
“I didn’t dump you,” he said quietly, his gaze locked with mine. “I gave you up.”
“Oh.” The word came out on a wispy breath.
“Now do you see?” His dark lashes lowered as his attention shifted to my mouth.
“Um . . .”
“And I didn’t come to Harlem at three o’clock in the morning to get you out of jail because I felt guilty.” He leaned closer to me.
“No?”
“No.” His lips hovered near