Jules burst out laughing. “Holy shit, you should see your face right now. No, silly, I promise to keep my sex partners to three or less at one time just so you can sleep at night knowing I won’t be crushed by an avalanche of legs.”
“You’re so kind.”
My computer pinged with an email, and I couldn’t contain the squeal if I wanted to.
“What is it?” Jules asked, running over to me.
“Faith wants to have a conference call to discuss us moving forward.”
We both screamed until we were hoarse before calling Aurora and screaming again, setting up a time to speak to Faith mother fucking Taylor.
“She was so amazing and her ideas were incredible,” I gushed while I finished making Bradford’s favorite meal.
He sat at my kitchen island as I recounted verbatim our conversation with Faith that morning. Aurora’s project was going to blow up, and Jules and I were going to be with her from the start.
Bradford frowned, staring down at his phone. Annoyance skittered up my spine and I tamped it down. I knew he was excited for me, but he’d been traveling a lot lately and was probably exhausted from his trip.
I plated the enchiladas and sat next to him. He lifted his fork to his mouth but set it down without taking a bite.
“Is everything all right?” I asked, taking a bite of my own food to make sure it tasted fine.
I rolled my eyes at the cheesy goodness. It definitely wasn’t the food.
“We need to break up.” The words pushed out of his mouth so fast it took me a moment to figure out what he’d said.
“Okay,” I answered him, laughing. “Stop, if you don’t want the enchiladas just tell me.” I shook my head while taking another bite.
“I’m serious, Rachel. I can’t do this anymore.”
The bite I’d just swallowed hit my stomach and wanted to make a return flight back out.
“What are you talking about?” I felt like slapping myself for the little hitch in my voice.
“I want to break up,” he said again, standing and pacing the kitchen.
“What the fuck, Bradford? You just proposed to me. Are you getting cold feet? We don’t have to get married right away.”
He laughed a low, ugly laugh that felt like I needed to wash it off me.
“I’m not getting cold feet, Rach. I realized I’ve never lived. We have been together since college.”
“Yes, I’m fully aware since I was the other half of this fucking relationship.” I pinched my leg under the kitchen island to bring me back to the present. I was not going to let him see how destroyed I was at his words. He didn’t deserve emotion from me.
He ran his hands through his blond hair, making it stand on end. I wanted to light it on fire.
“Traveling made me realize that I haven’t got to live yet.”
“Traveling to Ohio made you realize you haven’t lived?” I scoffed, wanting to make him feel small.
“Yes … I mean, no. I just mean we haven’t even seen what else is available. After I proposed I started thinking about how much we’ve done together. You are settled. You have your company, it’s not like we can do things together.”
“What the actual fuck, Bradford?”
“Rach, I want to live.”
“That’s funny because right now I kinda want you to die.”
Fuck, that was not calm. Keep it reined in, Rachel.