Strip Tease

Chapter 41

August 19th

I sat at the usual table next to the fireplace. It wasn't on, thank god, but the chairs here were plush and comfy. I watched the window, sipping my tea as I waited for him to pop through the door at any moment. It had been so long. I had definitely changed since the last time we spoke.

I heard the chime above the door make its melody and it snapped me out of my daze. He walked through the door wearing a plain white t-shirt and a pair of jeans. His hair had become longer and the bags under his eyes had become darker. He seemed to have lost some weight but not in a good way. He didn't look his usual muscular self, more sucked in and in pain.

My heart ached for him. He must have been hurting. From what I've heard in the news, he has pretty much lost everything. His family stopped talking to him, the board voted him out of Miller Co, his best friend wants nothing to do with him, his company is in shambles because no one wants to work with someone who left his pregnant girlfriend and lied to everyone about who she was to him.

Don't get me wrong, the anger is still there. He left me, he accused me of cheating, and he treated me like shit. But over the last few months I have learned to let a lot of that anger go. We would never again be as close as we once were, and that broke my heart the most.

He looked around the small shop and instead of shrinking down in my seat like I would have done almost a whole year ago, when our eyes met, I gave him a polite smile and a short wave. But no smile passed his lips. He looked at me as if his whole life was flashing before him and he was in pain from the slide show. Guilt was evident on his face and it made me feel slightly better knowing that he regrets his actions. He looked around the room full of people and instead of ordering his coffee he walked the short distance and sat down across from me.

"Hi." I said after an awkward silence that was filled of him staring at me for two minutes straight. Not at my bump but at me. My eyes, my lips, my hair. I watched his eyes flicker all over my face like he had forgotten what I looked like over the last eight months. "How have you been?"

He barks out a laugh and rubs his hand over his face. The man looks like he hasn't slept in weeks. "You're asking me how I'm doing? God I am such as asshole. I'm really fucking terrible Raegan. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't focus. My friends hate me, my family hates me, my ex-girlfriend hates me-"

"I don't hate you. I just don't understand. You wouldn't talk to me, you just kept yelling at me to get out. What happened Orion?" I asked even though I knew exactly what happened.

"That's even worse. Can't you hate me? Can't you be upset? Slap me, yell at me, tell me I'm an asshole."

"You were an asshole and I was mad and I did hate you. But I don't anymore. It's been almost 8 months, I've moved on and so should-"

"You've moved on? Have you been dating?" His face paled even more and he looked like he was going to be sick. I knew deep down inside I still loved Orion but I wasn't going to go running back into his arms. That's not how this love story works. He doesn't get to show up after 8 months and tell me he is sorry and all is forgiven. "Does he know about your job?"

 I rolled my eyes but smiled at the stupid little fights Oliver and I would get into. I decided to answer him in a different way. "You always told me you hated my job, that it bothered you and you would stick it out until I became a nurse and quit Temp's, but you made sure I knew how you felt. And I respected that, you had opinions ad you were entited to them. But you also made sure I knew how little respect you had for strippers. You saw a future, and it didn't involve a stripper." I clear my throat, searching his stricken features.

"But with Oliver, he wasn't thinking so far ahead. He wanted me, all of me, right then and there and, even when I wasn't ready. When I had to quit Temps, he felt my pain, he understood that I loved my job and I don't think he would have asked me to give it up if the circumstances were different. Maybe because he knew one day I would leave on my own, but he never voiced it. He wanted me for who I was, not what I chose to do for a living."