Bad Liar

Chapter Nineteen

Billie awoke to some fantastic smells coming from outside of her bedroom. Her body ached in places she's never ached before. The events of last night came flooding back to her.

She sat up ramrod straight in bed, holding the covers close to her chest, as she was still naked. Oh God, what had she done? Why did she do it? She promised herself that she wouldn't.

Billie got up, took a shower, and spent a long time getting dressed. Anything to stall, going into the other room and facing Quentin, but she had run out of things to do. She opened the bedroom door and there, laid out on the table, was an omelet, toast, and coffee for two.

Quentin came over carrying utensils, cream, and sugar to the table. "I wondered if breakfast was going to get cold. I sort of took you for an early riser."

He took a seat at the table. Quentin was dressed in his clothes from last night but he rolled his shirtsleeves up on his forearms and he left the top few buttons undone on his shirt. Billie nearly wanted to laugh as she took in the state of his hair, as it was almost the exact style she wanted to ruffle his hair into last night when she had first laid eyes on him.

"Are you not a breakfast person?" he asked, feeling odd at the fact that she had said nothing to him and only stood there staring at him like he was some apparition that suddenly appeared in her dining area. Quentin waved his hand for her to take a seat and she sat in the chair across from him.

"This looks lovely," Billie said but she was too upset to eat. Her nerves were shot and as good as the eggs looked and probably tasted they turned to sawdust in her mouth with the first forkful.

"No good?" Quentin asked. Her sour expression must have shown.

"No everything is perfect," she said quickly fixing her coffee so she could take a sip to muscle down her food, but it immediately turned her stomach and she put her fork down unable to take another bite.

"Quentin... last night..." she began.

Quentin cringed. "Please don't. You promised," he said pushing his own food around on his plate.

"I hit a low point and..."

Quentin stood up, took both plates of food with him, and threw the food in the garbage before placing the plates in the sink. He stood there with his back to her his hands pressed against the countertop.

"Quentin, please. I need you to understand," Billie began again.

He turned to look at her. "Save it. You'll have to forgive me if I don't want to hear it. I'm not going to do this with you. I made a promise. I kept it. At least on my end, I did." Quentin walked back out into the living area rolling down his sleeves and pulling them into place with the cufflinks he pulled from his pocket.

He began to button up his shirt as he said, "You know I expected this but I really had hoped..." He let out a half laugh at his unfinished thoughts. "Stupid of me, right?" He shook his head and started walking towards her door.

"Where are you going?" Billie asked alarmed. He was just going to leave? Just like that?

Quentin paused with his hand on the doorknob.

"I can't do this, Billie. I know you want to explain away what happened last night. To reassure yourself it meant nothing to you and maybe that's true but I can't. I can't pretend that making love to you last night wasn't amazing. That it didn't mean something. That I wasn't hoping for more. I'm sorry, I just can't."

Quentin opened the door to step through but Billie grabbed his arm to stop him. He hadn't even realized she had gotten up from her chair.

"I can't let you leave like this but I don't know what to say." Billie felt so lost.