Because I still hadn't come up with a plan.
If my car hadn't been at Dex's house, then I would have had more options. But it was. I didn't have my cell on me so I couldn't even try to call Sonny and explain to him the situation, because I'm sure he'd hear about it eventually and I didn't want to lie to him. If anyone was going to tell him I'd done something stupid I hoped it'd be me.
Then at some point during the movie that I watched without paying attention, I'd started crying. Just silent tears that burned on their way out. Treacherous little things that embarrassed me even more than I'd already been.
The figure at the foot of the theater took two steps up. I could tell it was a man in the dark. Tall and muscular, but that was all I managed to recognize. Frankly, I didn't care so I looked back at the projection of the two onscreen actors laughing instead.
It was probably my desire to lose myself in the movie that made me blind to the figure that took the steps two at a time before shimmying down the empty row I was in and taking an elegant seat next to me.
I tensed up but I didn't turn to look at the man—at Dex.
The movie played on for what seemed like ten or fifteen more minutes. He didn't say anything though I could feel the weight of his gaze on me. Only he could look at me in such a physical way.
And then he sighed, loud and clear.
"Ritz," he murmured for no reason. There were only three other people in the theater and we were scattered.
That didn't mean I was going to pay attention to him.
Two minutes later, he whispered again. "Ritz."
Nope, still wasn't going to pay him any attention.
"Ritz."
"Ritz."
He must have repeated my name at least five times total. A mix of a whisper that eventually blended into a weak hiss.
Still nothing.
I kept my eyes on the screen even though I'd stopped listening to the dialogue after the second time he said my name.
Me ignoring him was nothing to him. He lifted the arm rest between our seats, and I shifted over, away.
Long fingers crept up over my knee before I tried to jerk it away uselessly. He clamped his grip down to stop me, not necessarily rough but it wasn't gentle either. "Quit," he ordered to deaf ears.
I just went back to keeping my eyes forward, ignoring him again.
He lengthened his palm to hold as much of my thigh as he could, his fingers curling over the rest of my muscle. He leaned forward, across the gap of our seats, and dipped his head close to mine. I froze but kept looking straight ahead like he wasn't there.
"Babe," Dex cooed, his nose to my temple. "Don't ever do that shit to me again."
Ha!
Neither one of us said anything else for a while. He didn't move and I kept pretending like he wasn't there until finally, he sighed again, exasperated. "Ritz."
Dick.
He brushed a line from my temple down to my jaw with the tip of his nose. What I really wanted to do was ignore him and pretend that he wasn't there but I knew this guy. He didn't understand subtle. "Leave me alone, Dex," I said as calmly and detached as possible.
He answered the same way I should have expected him to. "No."
Tipping my face away, I pushed my left hand against the center of his chest. "Leave me alone."
Dex let out a long breath of air from his nose that whispered down my throat. "No, honey."
Screw him and his honey. Dick.
"Stop," I ground out.
He gripped my thigh harder, pushing his nose against my jaw. "We need to talk," he whispered.
"No, we don't," I hissed back at him.
"Yeah, we do," he insisted.
This friggin' man was the devil. "Would you please just leave me alone? I think we've done enough to each other."
Another drawn out sigh escaped him. "Babe," he said again in a low coo.
There was nothing for us to talk about. Nothing that I wanted to hear him say. Well maybe with the exception of explaining to me how he'd found where I was at. That would be nice. But no.
We were both quiet again. I watched the movie screen only because I didn't want to see him while he watched me.
It felt like a quarter of the movie went by before he spoke again. "I'm not so good at this," he whispered. "It was bad enough that that asshole shows up and was tryin' to take you away from me.
"Then you tell me that you went to fuckin' Busty's to talk to 'em? You know what could’ve happened to you? What those worthless pieces of shit do to pretty things like you? They eat 'em for lunch. They would’ve taken you and hurt you just because of who your daddy is, because of who Son is, Ritz," he growled.
Dex tightened his fingers once more for just a second before loosening them. "It's a fuckin' miracle that they let you get outta there."
Well, he had a point but regardless, I was still pissed.
And when I didn't say anything in response to his explanation, I realized that he was still pissed off as well. "Ritz, quit trippin'."
Yup, still not saying a word.
The rest of the movie went by in a blur. It was words and actors, meaningless on top of mindless. If anyone had asked me what happened, I couldn't tell them anything.
The lights in the theater lightened as the credits rolled and I stood up, glancing down at him for just a second. Was that a bruise on his chin? That wasn’t the moment to feel bad for him, if it was. I had more important things to focus on. Like him being a total jerk.
"I get that you're mad because I did something stupid—really stupid, but you were an asshole, Dex. Maybe other people are used to you yelling at them and talking crap, but I'm not and I'm never going to be. I've put up with too much to put up with you making me feel like crap. So I'm gonna go to Pins and give Slim back his car, and go back to your house. If you don't mind, I'll stay there tonight, and then figure out something else to do."
"The hell you will." His eyes went wide in disbelief and filtered frustration. "You can be pissed off all you want, babe, but you aren't goin' anywhere."
This friggin' guy. I was going to end up in jail if Sonny didn't get back soon. Why couldn't he just say that he was sorry? Maybe I'd still be mad even if he apologized but the fact that he wouldn't say the one word in the English language that I wanted, bothered me more than anything.
"Whatever, Dex."
It was his turn to give me that impenetrable silence. The only difference was, I didn't wait around like he had. I slipped past him and left.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Two days.
For two friggin' days I didn't speak to him. To the biggest pain in the butt I'd ever met.
That first day, after I'd driven back to Pins, I hadn't spared another word in his direction. Even after he stopped me outside and asked, "Are you fuckin' serious?" when I wouldn't look at him. After all, it wasn't like I wanted to be around him at that moment or for any other moment in the near future. If I didn’t care about pissing Sonny off even more, then the situation would have been a completely different story. I could have taken a much needed break from The Dick by staying at a hotel.
But that wasn't the way it worked out. I could tell Dex was furious that I hadn't accepted his puny attempt at an apology—that lacked the keyword: sorry—and since I was mad and hurt, I didn't give a crap. Then he’d gotten even more mad that I was serious about it, which made matters worse.
And the silence. Crap. The friggin' silence sucked.
It might have been made worse because I wanted to find out why Dex had a purple and blue splattering of blood vessels on his chin. I wanted to know how he got it, but it wasn’t like I could ask.