After hours

Chapter Twenty

~*~*~ Daniel's POV ~*~*~

I'm such a Goddamned spaz. I'd nearly ruined everything with Ryan that night. I don't know what was wrong with me. In the twenty-one years Tori and I had been together I have never, not once, so much as lifted a threatening finger to her. And yet, here I was just months into the relationship with Ryan and I'd already thrown her onto the damn ground.

Fuck.

I was just so frustrated. Seeing her and Tori in the same place had been a cruel, cruel evening. To everyone. I felt like the biggest asshole in the world. I did love Tori. I really did, I cared for her deeply. But there was an undeniable fire between Ryan and I that nothing could compete with.

She was too drunk that night to remember to be mad at me and had soon after become too sick to resist my gentle caress. But when she woke up the following morning, sober, it had been a different story. As much as I hated, and I do mean hated, to see her beautiful face twisted with pain, her dark eyes gloss over, and her body shake as it always did when she cried; that would have been better than what she'd actually done. I wish she would have yelled at me, kicked me out of the house, threw the ring in my face, cried even. But she didn't.

She'd rolled over with a groan, the way she always does when she's hung over, and then her eyes locked onto mine. I'd watched her sleep. All damn night I had watched her sleep. I certainly couldn't have slept myself. I was too furious with myself and panicked that I would never get to watch her sleep again. When her gaze found mine my stomach dropped. I was waiting for her to tell me to leave, for her to call me out, remind me what a waste of space and life I am, but she didn't.

She looked surprised for a split second, maybe I even imagined that part, because suddenly she looked spent. Her eyes dulled and she got up and carried on her morning with little interest in what I was doing. The silence screamed at me.

She did the last thing I expected when she told me she wasn't angry, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. It hasn't in the entire almost two weeks since. I think I may have broken her. We've been together since, in every way. Every time I brought it up she pushed it aside, says it doesn't matter. Shit happens.

I don't want her to think this is acceptable, that this is how relationships work. That one person gets frustrated and throws around the other. I made a fucking mistake and I wish she would just let me have it already. I wish she would yell at me, to cry, to show some sort of emotion because the corpse I have been seeing on an almost nightly basis is killing me.

"Hey babe." Victoria called from the bedroom.

I poked my head out of the bathroom with shaving cream still lining my jaw. "Yeah?" I was running late, as usual, I really didn't have time to pussyfoot around this morning.

"Ryan texted you."

I caught sight of the cellphone in her hand. We'd had a very open relationship, we had each other's passwords and account information, she would answer my phone and I hers. Before all of this, we had had a strong and trust-filled relationship. I stepped out of the bathroom completely. Ryan must have sent something, something to catch Tori's eye.

This was it.

I deserved whatever I had coming. "Oh?" I said meekly. I was ready for this, whatever came from this.

"She said she's running late today."

"Oh?" I said my interest admittedly more peaked. That's it? "Why would she tell me that and not Kate?" The assistant, or was it Kara...