N is for Notch - A to Z Challenge

This is an excerpt from Setting the Record Straight.
 

Riley’s breath caught in her chest when she looked up at him and then her heart sent her a painful reminder. She was being careless. How many times would she let her guard down with this man?

He was leaving tomorrow. Nothing was ever going to change between them and she shouldn’t want it to. She needed distance. She wanted things to go back the way they were before she opened her big mouth.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” she blurted out.

“What’s that?” Colin asked.

“You’re being nice to me so that I will have to be nice back.”

“You think so?”

“See, cause if I’m nice to you then no one is mad at you.”

“And you think that matters to me? That everyone has to like me?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Really? You think you’re the only person in the world that is pissed at me right now?”

His words were laced with anger and even in this light, she could tell, the look he was giving her wasn’t friendly.

“Well -”

“You’re not.”

“I have a good reason.”

“They all have good reasons.”

Trying not to disturb the other guests on the deck Colin pulled her further away from the doors to the railing.

“How come you never said anything to me?”

Colin had wanted to ask her this question ever since she had told him about the night of their graduation.

“What should I have said?”

“Anything. Something.”

“What, I should have called you in the city and asked you why you left poor little me back home? Or maybe the first time you came back I should have offered you another go?”

“Stop that. Why do you say things like that?”

“Like what? I’m just another notch, right?”

“No.”

“No? I hear I’m not the only girl you forgot about.”

“Don’t,” Colin warned.

“What was her name again? Valerie something, right?”

“Stop, Riley.”

“Seems you left her high and dry in a hotel room and then sent your groupies to go clean up your mess.”

Riley was trying to get around him but he had her blocked in the corner of the railing.

“That’s not what happened,” Colin said. “You don’t know the whole story.

“I don’t need her story, Colin, I have my own.”

“So, I make a mistake and you think you get to pass judgment on me? And you think I’m a snob?” he asked her hotly, his eyes hard black. “Don’t talk about things you don’t know about, Riley. It’s not good enough for you to read a story in the tabloids and think you know a fucking thing about who I am. You know what? I’m done. You make it too hard, which I guess was your intention all along.”