“And you were okay with that?”
“No. I wasn’t okay with it at all, but I couldn’t do anything about it after the fact.” I’d been furious with Chris. He was one of my closest friends. It had felt like a betrayal. I expected it from Sienna; that was how she worked, but never Chris.
“And that was it, then? You were done with her?”
“Not quite.”
I went back, again and again. For years. I went months without seeing her, and then she’d magically appear at Inked Armor asking for touch-ups or whatever bullshit excuse she could come up with. Other times I’d cave and end up at The Dollhouse looking for some kind of release from the endless fucking torture of living in my head.
She would be there, promising no boundaries, telling me it was okay that I was angry with her and she would make it up to me. And like a fucking idiot, I bought it. Every time. Desperate for the escape. It took me almost four years to finally get a clue and stop feeding into the bullshit. My uncle would probably have a field day with that if he could ever shrink-ify me. So far I had evaded his offers for therapy. I already knew I was fucked up. I didn’t need to pay someone to tell me that.
Tenley looked dumbfounded. “Why would you go back?”
“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
But that wasn’t it at all. Sienna was all I thought I deserved. She reaffirmed my inherent sense of worthlessness, because she suffered the same affliction.
“But it’s been more than a year since I’ve been with her,” I explained, wanting to be sure Tenley knew I was done with all that.
I understood now why I’d never tried to do anything like this before. Why I avoided getting close to anyone, or even giving a shit about them. Because I would have to explain my previous actions. And not just to Tenley, but to myself.
Tenley had lost nine people in a plane crash, and she wasn’t fucking every guy who looked at her. She was with me, and that led to a whole barrage of questions I didn’t want to ask. But she hadn’t gone off the deep end like I had. In fact, aside from a massive tattoo and a cupboard full of prescription pills she didn’t seem to take much anymore, she had picked up the pieces of her life and figured out a way to move on.
I didn’t want to believe that Cross or Sienna could be right—that eventually Tenley would wake up and see what a mess I’d made of her life. All my baggage, all my shit, all the ways I would corrupt her if given the chance. Now that she’d seen who I really was, how could she want me?
She lifted her eyes to mine and asked meekly, “Sienna and that other woman, were you with them both at the same time?”
I exhaled a heavy breath. Why the fuck did she have to ask that question? When I didn’t answer right away, she made a little sound. “Is that what you want from me?”
“What?”
“The . . . sharing. Is that what you want?” She looked utterly terrified.
“No! Absolutely not. If anyone but me touches you, I’ll cut off his dick and beat him to death with it.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “That’s not what I meant. Let me rephrase: I don’t want to share you with anyone. Ever.”
Her shoulders sagged. It sickened me that I’d made her think it could ever be a possibility.
“But what if I’m not enough?” Her eyes lifted, and that hollow stare scared me more than her words. It was as if someone had pulled her soul out of her body and left a shell behind. “It would be exactly what I deserve.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you’re enough. Don’t you get it? I don’t want anyone else. I want you.”
“What happens when you’re done with me?”
“I won’t be.”
“You can’t know that. You got bored with Sienna. What if you get bored with me? I can’t share you like that, and I don’t want to be shared.” Her lip curled in disgust. “I would hate myself if I allowed something like that to happen.”
There was so much more behind her admission than I could process. It confirmed in so many ways that Tenley and I were on the same page, maybe more than either of us realized.
“But it wouldn’t. I did that shit a long time ago. I haven’t done anything like that since her. That’s not what I want anymore.” When she remained silent, I took another step closer and reached out. She flinched away.
“Tenley, you’ve got to see that it’s not like that with you.”
Her fingers drifted over the edge of the counter. There was a mar in the Formica. A pit in the otherwise flawless surface. Her finger kept sliding over that divot, back and forth. “I think you should go,” she said, and her voice broke. Her head was down, her hair masking most of her face as droplets splashed on the counter in front of her. She was crying, and it was my fucking fault.
“Please—”
“I just need to be alone right now.”
“I don’t want to go. I want to fix this.”
“I don’t know that you can.”
29
TENLEY