Lexi peered at the man driving, irritation heavy on her face that she just didn’t know what Atticus was thinking. When Atticus wanted to be, he could have the absolutely unpenetrable poker face. As an actress, Lexi liked to think she could pride herself on reading expressions, being a master at making expressions. But this skill didn’t always seem to apply to Atticus. What she could pick up on was his body language. She noticed that his shoulders were tensing and untensing, his muscles tightening against the fabric of his dark suit. Was he bothered by the fact that she was de facto engaged? She didn’t want to admit it, but part of her had been hoping that Atticus would have been angry when she entered the car. They had been sleeping together for more than a year now, moving into a strange territory when Lexi was more than fond of the man. Whatever it was that they had, Lexi expected a stronger reaction. But then again, she was talking about Atticus, a man who she had rarely ever seen fazed.
Suddenly, it was as if he had heard her complaints. The car was turning now into the parking lot in front of an old building. Before Lexi could even voice her thoughts, the sharp crack of the parking brake reverberated in the car which then fell into a confusing and uncomfortable silence. Often too talkative for her own good, even Lexi didn’t know how to break the silence. Instead she watched Atticus look like he was searching through his thoughts. Finally he spoke and Lexi felt almost speechless. Why didn’t she tell him? Was that what this was all about? That she hadn’t given him the “good” news directly? A heavy blanket of disappointment smothered Lexi. It wasn’t until he asked that specific question that she realized she had been wanting a completely different question to come from his lips. A, “I don’t want you to be engaged” would have been nice, or perhaps even an angry, “When did you start seeing somebody else?” The actress would have immediately tried to tell him that it wasn’t real. It was temporary and she was figuring it out. It was ironic. Lexi was almost angry now, a bubble of frustration rising inside of her. In fact, she wouldn’t even be in the whole god damn situation if it wasn’t for him. That Alexander Blythe had something on Atticus. What it was, she didn’t know yet. But it had been enough of a worry that she had faltered, and then her father had one-upped her. Now here she was wanting him to be upset about her engagement as much as she was.
Her lips settled into a thin line, her arms remained crossed just as they were when she entered the car. “Tell you what? That I’m engaged?” Against my will. She was lashing out now, her voice on the brink of bitterness. “Does me being engaged bother you?” She was goading him now, wanting a satisfying reaction from him, knowing she was letting her anger get the better of her. But she just couldn’t stop. God, she was terrible. She was frustrated about the whole situation and here she was, taking it out onto Atticus. Her hands were on autopilot now. that she was on a roll, her fingers unclasping her seatbelt so she could fully turn towards the man. It was at that moment that she knew she was going to take the next step too far even before she took it, even before the words were pettily challenging Atticus. “Does it bother you that we won’t be able to sleep together anymore?”
As soon as the question had left Atticus' lips, he had a feeling he should have gone with something else, something better, but when his mind was going ninety to nothing it was hard for him to think coherently. Instead, he could feel the tension still rise between the both of them, wondering just why she would go so far to hide someone else from him in the first place? Maybe she felt like she didn't need to tell him, that all they truly had been was friends with benefits and nothing more? If that was the case though, why would she have been okay with him moving across the country for her? Atticus didn't like confusion and uncertainty, but that's all that seemed to surround him in this moment. Not to mention he could tell as soon as he spoke up that it wasn't what Lexi wanted to hear, the disapproval visible in her features. Before he could answer the girl's first two questions, attempting to finally find the right words to say so he wanted to choose them more carefully, he was silenced by the next. It was like all the words he had gathered and posed on his tongue were ripped straight out of his mouth before he could even try. Jaw dropping only slightly, the man's brows furrowed unbeknownst to him as he turned his attention completely on his company, trying to process if he had heard what he just did correctly. When he couldn't find the words, he turned straight forward again, an exasperated sigh escaping him as he did so.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Alexis," the man mumbled, an ironic chuckle echoing the words along with a bitter smile laced in frustration. He was bubbling with anger, something he always attempted to control, but with each question it was like his indignation was being pulled closer and closer to the surface. "Do you really think that's the only thing I want from you? Is your body?" he asked rhetorically with the shake of his head. "You've been coming to me for over a year now, whether it be good or bad, we've been finding solace in each other when we couldn't find it anywhere else in the world. And it was probably me just being foolish but I thought that maybe over time you felt-" he pushed his hair back in frustration, absentmindedly halting his words out of habit. "I thought you'd tell me if you were seeing someone else, let alone were engaged to someone else." Unbuckling his seat-belt just as his company had, the man sat mirrored her, making a point to try told hold her gaze the best he possibly could. He'd admitted that he wanted more than her physically, and that he'd hoped she would have told him if she were seeing someone, so it's not like it would be all that big of a stretch for him to spit out the truth that had been stewing in his mind for months on end now, would it?
The main problem with such a thought, though, was that once he did say it, there'd be no going back to what they knew as comfortable, but then again if she had a man in her life that wouldn't be an option anyway. "You deserve the absolute best man, Lexi, and I know that you deserve better than him," he admits earnestly. "I know that it could never even remotely be me but-" he choked on these last words, his Adam's apple bobbing as he gulped them down. Atticus' eyes had grown wide, wider than he could recall they'd been in quite some time, as his brain tried to scan how to save himself from the words he just admitted. He grew silent again, but only this time it was in defeat, defeat of trying to suppress everything to the point that of being an emotionless shell. Defeat in trying to prevent Lexi from knowing the true him for as long as he had. Sighing, his eyes looked down at the space between them, his fingers fidgeting subconsciously. "I'm sorry," the man all but whispered, "I can't be mad at you if I never told you that I..." he trailed off as the air seemed to be taken from his lungs yet again, an attempt to keep him from speaking further, but he pushed past it nonetheless. "That I wished I could be that person. I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at myself for-," his gaze moved up again, locking his darkened hues to her own, "for letting you get away."
