“Thanks. I know, right? My duties are officially over. But you still have to give your best man speech.”
He sighs audibly. “Yeah, don’t remind me.”
“I’m sure you’ll do great.”
“Here’s to that,” he replies, aiming his glass to mine.
We clink glasses. I take a sip, glancing toward the back of the room when I see Tomas shooting daggers at me with his eyes, right before he walks out the door.
Fuck. What now?
I put my champagne down on the bar. “Ian, will you excuse me?”
“Everything okay?” he asks worriedly.
“I have no idea.”
I follow Tomas out of the restaurant, catching him by the elbow. “Hey! Where are you going?”
“I’m going home. I can’t watch you with him anymore.”
I pull him aside closer to the building to get out of the way of the endless pedestrian traffic. “For fuck sakes, there’s nothing going on between Ian and me. And has it occurred to you since we’re in the wedding party that we’d be thrown together and would become friends by happenstance?”
He looks down at the pavement. “Maybe.”
Well, thank God for that. At least he admitted it. Finally.
I take his face in my hands, enveloping it gently. “Hey, I hope you know by now you can talk to me about anything. I know you’re holding something back from me, and I’m trying my best to be patient with you, but patience eventually runs out.”
He’s doing that thing again. Looking anywhere but at my face. My hands lose their grip on him when he starts shaking his head, as if he’s fighting something internally.
When he finally does bring his eyes back to mine, they’re misty, as if he wants to cry but doesn’t.
I step as close as I can to him, taking his hands in mine. “Please, Tomas, I’m begging you. If we have any chance of at future together, tell me what it is that you’re keeping from me. I won’t run away. I’ll listen to anything you have to tell me and I promise I won’t judge you.”
When he speaks, his voice is hoarse and raw with emotion.
“You’re an amazing woman, Luciana, and it’s not just that I’m afraid of losing you.”
“Then what else is it?” I press him.
“I’m afraid to tell you because I don’t want to take the risk of losing myself again.”
I drop my hands from his and take a step back from him.
I gasp at the shock of his words. You’re fucking kidding me, right?
“Okay, let me get this straight. You want to be with me more than anything, but you’re afraid of the commitment not just because you’re afraid of losing me, but because you’re not sure I’m worth the risk. Nice. Real nice, Tomas.”
I turn to walk away from him, but he rushes to me and grabs my shoulders to spin me around. I try my best to shake him off, but it’s futile because of his overwhelming strength. “No, Luciana, please, I didn’t mean that.”
My throat grows tight with hurt, biting down on the inside of my lower lip to keep myself from losing it. “All evidence seems to point to the contrary.”
His hands suddenly drop from my shoulders. “Why does it feel like I’m losing you?”
My head falls back in frustration, a groan echoing from my throat. “Because you are. Christ, I’ve been telling you this for ages and it’s like in one ear and out the other. You’re the one pulling away from me, and I don’t know why because you won’t tell me. But after what you just said, I’m thinking there’s something else going on. Do you want to break up with me?”
His blue eyes glare at me, heated with fury. “I’m going home.”
Before I can say another word, he turns his back on me and starts walking south toward Columbus Circle.
Fuck this.
I storm back into the bistro and to the reception, where thankfully everyone has settled in for dinner in the other room. I grab my clutch and wrap from the lounge where we had the cocktail hour and rush back outside, following Tomas’s retreat south to catch the subway.
About an hour later, I’m walking up the stairs to his fourth-floor apartment in Astoria. There was no way in hell I was going to let him just walk away from me with that question unanswered.
I pound on his door. A few seconds later, I hear footsteps stomping across the floor.
The door swings open, revealing Tomas in his customary white T-shirt and jeans, already out of the suit he wore to the wedding. “What are you doing here?” he snarls at me.
“Can I come in?” I snap right back at him.
The gloves are coming off. Get ready, Novotny.
He steps aside, and I fly past him into the apartment. I see his roommate, Stefan, another Czech expat, lying on the couch watching TV.
“Hallo, Luciana,” Stefan calls out to me.
“Hey, Stefan,” I reply casually since I have more important things on my mind.
Tomas moves past me to his room, and I follow him. He shuts the door behind me, giving me another full-on death stare with his eyes.
He’s kidding, right?
“What? Are you really surprised that I’m here? Did you honestly think I’d let you get away with not answering that question?”
Before I even let him reply, I spot an open suitcase on his bed, with clothes lying in them haphazardly as if someone just threw them in there, not caring whether they wrinkled or not.
My stomach drops. I can hear my heart pounding in my ears.
He can’t be…
“What’s going on?”
“I’m going home,” he replies in a whisper.
I spin around to look at him. His eyes are downcast. He starts fidgeting with his hands, not knowing what to do with himself.
I laugh from the shock, doing my best to mask the sheer panic and heartbreak that were taking hold of me. “Well, I guess you weren’t kidding back at Le Bistro when you said you were going home, huh? Are you coming back?”
He doesn’t say anything. He finally looks up at me, and when he does, his eyes are sunken and his face is pale.
Finally, he speaks.
“I…I don’t know,” he stammers. “I need to see my family. But it’s more than that.”
I clench my jaw, placing my hands on my hips. “Like what?”
Silence. He looks at me with a lost look in his eyes, like he wants to tell me the truth but is worried what my reaction will be.
That’s it. I can’t take this anymore.
I throw up my hands in defeat. “You know what? Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll save you the trouble. We’re done. I deserve better than this. I deserve to be with a man who doesn’t have doubts about me, who won’t go into panic mode when I ask him to give himself fully to me, who’ll be honest with me and not afraid to be himself with me, which is ironic since it’s usually me being myself with guys that puts them off. I don’t want half a man. I want all of him.”
I pause to catch a breath and see if he’ll say something.
Silence.
I laugh again to myself to ease the pain of this moment. “Well, okay then. Looks like I’ll have to write up a whole new Loser List since I have a new name to add to it. Have a nice fucking life, Tomas Novotny.”
I storm out of the apartment. Like a complete idiot, I keep looking back, waiting for Tomas to appear, pulling that romantic crap when the hero rushes to stop the heroine from leaving so he can tell her that he was a jerk and to forgive him and that they’ll be together forever.