Chapter 10 - Kicking Her Out

Chapter 10: Chapter 10 - Kicking Her Out

Tatiana didn’t answer the question.

She sat up properly, pulled his mother’s blanket tighter around her shoulders and blinked up at him with wide, glossy eyes.

"Where have you been all night?" she asked. "I was so worried about you, Jesse. You just stormed out and never came back. I didn’t know what to think."

Jesse stared at her.

For a second he almost admired it. She’d been caught under his boss with her legs in the air not even twelve hours ago, and somehow she’d woken up and decided she was the one who’d been wronged.

"You were worried," he repeated.

"Of course I was."

"If you were so worried, why didn’t you call me?"

Tatiana opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

Jesse pulled his phone from his pocket and held it up, screen facing her. No missed calls. No texts. Not one single message from her all night.

"I was lying in a hospital bed, Tati. Nobody called. Not you. Not anyone." He slid the phone back into his pocket. "You were right here, drinking wine and eating my chicken and fries."

Her eyes flicked to the empty takeout box on the coffee table, then back to him.

"I... I didn’t know you were in the hospital. How would I know that?"

"You’d know if you called."

She pressed her lips together. For once in two years, Tatiana Peele had nothing to say.

"Stop pretending," Jesse said. "I can see right through you now. I can finally see what my mother always saw in you."

His mother had never liked Tatiana. Not from the very first dinner, when Tatiana spent the whole meal on her phone and left her plate for his mother to clear. Not after she moved in with nothing but two suitcases and a promise that it would only be for a couple of days.

His mother had never been subtle about it either.

"That girl isn’t here for you, Jesse," she’d told him once, sitting up in her hospice bed, so thin by then that her wedding ring kept slipping off her finger. "She’s here for what she thinks you’ll become. And the day she figures out you’re not becoming it fast enough, she’ll find someone else."

Jesse had laughed it off. He’d told her she was being overprotective. That she’d never think any girl was good enough for her only child.

She hadn’t argued. She’d just looked at him with those tired, knowing eyes and said, "I hope I’m wrong, baby."

She hadn’t been wrong. She’d never been wrong about people. Jesse just hadn’t wanted to listen.

Tatiana must have seen something shift in his face, because her whole demeanor changed. Her shoulders dropped. Her voice went soft.

"Jesse. Please." She swung her legs off the couch and reached for his hand. He pulled it away. "Just let me stay a couple of days. That’s all I’m asking. Just until I find a place."

Jesse laughed. It came out sharp and humorless.

"A couple of days. Do you remember the first time you said that?"

She didn’t answer.

"Because I do. You had a fight with your roommate and you needed somewhere to crash for a couple of days. That was two years ago, Tati. Two years. You never paid a cent of rent. You never paid a single bill. You never even bought groceries."

"I mean it this time." She stood up, letting the blanket fall to the couch. She was still wearing one of his T-shirts and nothing else. "I swear. The second I find a place, I’ll move out. You won’t even have to ask."

She stepped closer and tilted her head, and her voice dipped into something sweeter, almost teasing.

"And who knows? Maybe by then you’ll change your mind." She ran a finger down the front of his shirt. "Maybe you’ll finally realize you can’t do any better than me."

Jesse went very still.

He’d never planned on letting her stay. Not after last night. But those words did something to him. They reached down into some old, bruised place in his chest and squeezed.

You can’t do better than me.

She’d said it like it was a favor. Like a cross-eyed, crooked-nosed, basement-dwelling nobody should be grateful she’d let him touch her at all.

Something in him hardened into stone.

He caught her wrist and moved her hand off his chest.

"You say that like you’ve been of any value to me, Tati."

Her smile faltered.

"All you’ve done since we started dating is leech off me. You eat my food. You sleep in my bed. You spend money I don’t have on clothes you wear once and throw them in the back of the closet." His voice rose with every word. "We’ve never really made love. You’ve forgotten my birthday two years in a row. I can’t even remember the last time you genuinely made me happy."

He stepped closer.

"And then, on top of all of that, you decided to let my boss fuck you in my bed."

Tatiana flinched like he’d slapped her.

She’d seen him angry before, but only ever at himself. Frustrated. Tired. Disappointed. She’d never seen this. His voice wasn’t cracking. His hands weren’t shaking. He was standing over her like a stranger.

She took a step back and bumped into the arm of the couch.

Jesse closed the distance again.

"So tell me something. What were you even planning to gain from that affair?" He tilted his head, studying her. "Because Andrew is never leaving Natalia for you. You know that, right? The Hylands don’t marry girls like you. They fuck girls like you and then they marry girls like Natalia."

Tatiana’s jaw tightened.

"Deep down, you know he was always going to use you and throw you away. So what was the goal here, Tati? What did he promise you?"

For a long moment, she didn’t answer.

Then she lifted her chin, defiant, like it was something to be proud of.

"I’m going to be modeling at the fall collection fashion show."

The fall collection.

The same fashion show Jesse had been killing himself over for months. The one he’d been buried in logistics agreements for while she was right here, in his bed, earning her runway spot with Andrew between her legs.

He’d probably signed off on the paperwork for her walk himself without even realizing it.

Jesse smiled.

It wasn’t a nice smile.

"Now that explains a lot." He clapped his hands together once, slowly. "Congratulations, Tati. You’re a whore."

Her mouth fell open.

"Now get the fuck out of my house."

Tatiana didn’t move. She crossed her arms over her chest and planted her feet like she was daring him to make her.

"You can’t just throw me out. I have rights. I’ve lived here for two years."

"Watch me."

Jesse turned on his heel and walked into the bedroom.

He stopped in the doorway for half a second. The sheets were still tangled from last night. Andrew’s cologne still hung in the air. Jesse’s stomach turned, but he pushed past it.

He yanked open the closet and started grabbing everything that belonged to her. Dresses. Jeans. Heels he’d never seen her wear. A designer handbag he was pretty sure she’d charged to his card. He threw it all into a pile on the bed.

He pulled open the dresser drawers and dumped them out. Bras. Panties. Makeup bags. Hair tools. He swept her perfume bottles off the vanity and into an open suitcase.

"Jesse! Stop it! What are you doing?" Tatiana rushed in behind him.

He didn’t stop. He zipped one suitcase shut, dragged the second one out from under the bed and kept going.

"Those are my things!"

"That’s why they’re leaving."

He carried the first suitcase past her, out of the bedroom, through the living room, opened the front door and dropped it in the hallway. It landed with a heavy thud.

Then he went back for the second one.

Tatiana watched him with growing panic. She’d thought he would yell, break something, cry, and then calm down like he always did. She’d been sure of it.

But Jesse wasn’t calming down. He was methodical. He was cold. And he was serious.

When he came back for a third armful of her clothes, Tatiana dropped to her knees in front of him.

"Jesse, please." Her voice broke. Real tears this time, or close enough. "Please don’t do this. I have nowhere to go. My parents won’t take me back. I have no money. I’ll do anything. Anything you want. Just please let me stay."

Jesse stopped.

He looked down at her. Tatiana, the woman he’d once thought was too good for him, kneeling on the floor of his bedroom in his T-shirt, her mascara smeared, her hands clasped in front of her like she was praying to him.

He thought about every time she’d winced and pushed him away. Every time she’d told him he was too much, too big, that it hurt. Every time she’d rolled over and gone to sleep while he lay awake staring at the ceiling, wondering what was wrong with him.

Jesse grinned.

"Do you mean anything?"