MY BEST ADDICTION

Chapter 22

“Huh?”, was all that came out of my mouth. I looked disbelievingly at him trying to understand what he had said.
“I said I wanted to be more to you if you will give me the chance”.
“I get that but what do you mean by that?”
“I mean just that, I want to be official with you”, he said sounding confused.
“But how can that be? You already have a woman in your life and……”, I started to explain but he stopped me.
“Wait, wait, what do you mean by I already have a woman? Everyone knows I have no one in my life now”, he asked confused, even I was confused. If he didn’t have anyone then who was that woman I spoke to?
“There’s a woman who called during my internship asking of you, isn’t she your woman?”, I explained and he looked lost in thought. As if realizing what I meant he started to laugh startling me in the process.
“The woman that called? That’s my mom”.
“Your mom? She sounded so young when we spoke on the phone earlier”, I said embarrassed.
“Yeah she does have that and she never fails to use that to chase away the numerous women who come into my life”, he said stopping me from moving away from him seeing how embarrassed I felt about the issue.
“I’m sure she doesn’t know how promiscuous you are else she would have disowned you already”
“Hey I’m not that bad okay, they throw themselves at me not the other way round”, he boasted and I raised my brow at him.
“You still take them in, don’t you?”, I said feeling upset about it.
“That was in the past, I’m not like that anymore. I told you I want to be official with you and I can’t be if I’m still a Casanova, right?”
“But why do you want to be with me? I’m nothing like the women you were with in the past neither do fit your qualifications, so why? And don’t go about falling in love with me because I’m not believing that”, I said leaving the bed to create a distance between us so I could think clearly.
“Penny I know you won’t believe me if I say this but I can’t let you go, I need you”, he said and approached me. I turned away from him so I didn’t get swayed by emotions.
“But….”, I started to say but stopped and sighed. The whole thing was unexpected and I didn’t know how to go about it.
“Why won’t you let me? Is it that you won’t or you can’t?”, he asked standing directly behind me.
“What do you mean by that Seth?”, I asked confused because I hadn’t said anything yet.
“That guy I met the other day. Is he the reason why you won’t allow me?”, he asked and it was my turn to think about the person he was referring to.
‘I had met a lot of guys with Seth since I had to accompany him to almost all the meetings he had during my internship and at other times but the ones that stood out were Baron and Andrew. Since the issue with Baron was already settled then the only person he may be referring to had to be Andrew but they met only once so I might be wrong. If so then who was he talking about?’, I thought trying to find the person.
“Who are you talking about?”, I decided to ask since he was the only person who knew who was referring to.
“The guy we met at your house after our trip”, he said and I could feel him sulking. I giggled at his reaction despite the tense atmosphere.
“Oh you mean Andrew?”. I asked turning to look at him.
“Yeah him”, he said sounding upset as if just the thought of him upset him.
“What about him?”, I asked trying to hold my laughter in.
“Are you pretending to not know what I mean or do you want me to be very upset before you understand what I mean?”, he said and I finally let the laughter out. He just looked cute trying to hide his jealousy. He looked at me clearly upset with me and turned away from me when he realized I was pulling his leg.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, I said hugging his back. “I understood what you meant but you didn’t understand me, Andrew and I have nothing between us. I admit that we used to date but not anymore and nothing happened after we came back from the trip”, I explained pulling him with me back to the bed.
“Oh is that so?”, he whispered and sat on the bed.
“Wait, did you think there was something between us? Was that why you changed when we came back from the trip?”, I asked surprised but thinking about it everything made sense now. 
“Why didn’t you tell me when you came back to work?”, he asked and I looked at him in disbelief.
“Who was the one who avoided me the whole time after I came to work?”, I asked and he sulked at me. I laughed and held his face so he could look at me.
“I’m sorry for everything I did to you and how I acted towards you”, he apologized and I sighed at how sincere he looked.
“You are forgiven, actually I had forgiven you a long time ago and it was also my fault for not explaining to you when you found out my secret”, I said and placed a chaste kiss on his lips signalling that I wasn’t holding a grudge with him. He smiled and kissed the back of my hand playing with it.
“Why were you dancing at the Nest in the first place? I want to know but it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it”, he asked and added the last part when I stilled at his question.
“It’s okay don’t worry. I was just surprised you asked that question. I thought you never interested in that aspect of my life, considering how you reacted the day you found out”, I said and I could see his eyes flicker with different emotions. I smiled and decided to tell him, it wasn’t as if it was a big deal. Heck, he looked curious and I smiled at how cute he looked.
“Well I actually started dancing because of Andrew, I guess that was the only good thing I got from him. We met at a workshop in our first year and we became friends easily because we had a lot in common. He was the only friend I had made at that time and before we knew it things had escalated to us dating each other, ouch”, I said but stopped when he tightened his hold on my hand.
“I’m sorry, please continue”, he apologized and rubbed the sore hand.
“Where was I? Yeah, so we started dating and things were going smoothly for us but then things changed in our second year. He stopped being the caring guy I knew and started distancing himself from me. I thought nothing of it because we both had important things to do for our studies. It became worse as time went on and decided to confront him about it but when I did he snapped at me claiming I didn’t care about him and whatnot. After some weeks of his change, he apologized and started being sweet once again. He talked about marriage with me and went on about our future together and I became happy again thinking he was being sincere. He even came up with a way for us to make our own money for that supposed future of ours and I went along with it. On the day we were to go for the job, he led me to the Nest and that’s how I met Haven. I was confused the whole time we spent at the Nest but he paid no attention to me. When he was confronted he went on about how much he was helping me achieve my dream since he knew how much I loved dancing and how we were going to make money from it too”, I stopped and sighed.
“Why didn’t you tell him no or break it off with him?”
“I still don’t know why I stayed with him after all that time. I agreed to it and that’s how I started dancing for the Nest. All the money was kept in my account and gave him what he needed as per our agreement but he started asking for more and got violent when I denied his request. When I tried to end it, he threatened me with my work and made sure I couldn’t reach out to anyone. He was psycho and I trusted him. In all I found out he was into drugs and threatened him with it before he left me alone. It was after that incident that the Nest had the rule of wearing a mask when entering”, I concluded.
“Did Haven know about him?”, he asked when he realized I was done.
“He was acting as my manager so yeah she knew him and she also knew we were dating but she didn’t know about what happened between us so don’t worry”.
“Why didn’t you stop dancing after he left? Did you stay because you still loved him?”, he asked and I felt like I needed to take my time answering to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.  
“At first I stayed because it gave me the closure I desired but then the thrill of dancing overshadowed my desire and it became my new reason to continue dancing”, I answered and he pulled me to him. Startled I fell and laid on him. I stayed in that position and felt him play with my hair.
“Why don’t you continue dancing?”, he said and I felt the vibrations following his words in his chest.
“Huh? I thought you didn’t want me to dance anymore”, I asked trying to sit up but his hand on my head pushed me back down.
“Who said anything about dancing for others? You are to be my very own dancer”, he said and I could feel the smirk in his words.
“Huh?”, I said shocked.