And then there was Max, leading me to his car. He didn’t have to convince me to go with him.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded once we were locked inside. I scanned the street for Dom, but he’d already disappeared. “Shana, what the hell were you thinking?”
“You don’t know him,” I protested, still searching in the darkness for my dream guy.
“You don’t either.”
“What?” Quattro asked me now, even as my pulse was jumping from the memory of that breakup. But there was something new—not anxiety, but relief. I was truly free from Dom.
Where could I even start? I shook my head. “You?”
Quattro shrugged, which made two of us hiding secrets from each other. The silence sprouted with a thousand questions. But as I studied him, the need for conversation vanished. Instead, there was just one question: What were we going to do? The moment stretched. I knew what I wanted to do. I drew nearer to him. My lips parted in a sultry way that had slayed dozens of guys before him. Just as I knew he would, Quattro shifted toward me, cupped his hands gently around my face.
Here was the kiss that I had fantasized about for longer than I cared to admit.
Now. Yes. Finally.
And yet…
No red-alert sirens blared in my head. No early-warning system to assert my independence. No emergency ejection procedure to launch me on my toes and propel me back to the safety of the hostel.
All was quiet and still with the exception of a soft but emphatic no.
Gently but firmly, I pulled away.
Once upon a time, the hurt and baffled expression I saw on Quattro’s face would have made me stop and sink into a kiss out of sheer guilt, but now… no.
I’d already blinded myself once to the cold truth that Dom hadn’t returned my feelings, not really. I wasn’t about to repeat that mistake again. And frankly, I wanted more than great banter and delicious kissing.
“We’re both on moratoriums,” I said, and scooted from him so I was out of temptation’s way. There was no denying the thrumming desire to drag him over to me. On top of me… I cleared my throat. This time, I was going to be absolutely clear. “And I don’t do hookups, I don’t do booty calls, and I definitely am not a friend who provides benefits.”
“Okay,” he said slowly.
The fact was: If I didn’t want our story to end the way all my so-called relationships had, I was going to have to tell him the truth. The whole truth about me.
“About a year ago, I went out with an older guy.” My fingers entwined into a tight hard shell, the same way I had sheltered myself since Dom. “He was in business school.” I sighed deeply. “I wasn’t exactly up front that I was still in high school.”
“That probably didn’t go over well.”
“That’s an understatement.” Even that revelation was an artificially sweetened version of the truth. If what Mom said was true about needing to see a person react in crisis, I needed to see Quattro in crisis, in my crisis. I needed to show him my most ugly shame. If he couldn’t deal with the truth, if he thought less of me, I’d rather know now. “I was almost sixteen; he was twenty-two.”
“Whoa.”
“You know, I told myself that the age difference didn’t matter. I mean, my mom’s five years older than Dad. But in high school it makes all the difference. I didn’t sleep with him,” I said bluntly, “but if I had…”
“Statutory rape. Wow.”
“Yeah. It really was na?ve and selfish,” I said flatly.
“Yeah, it was.”
I wasn’t prepared for how much the truth confirmed by someone else could sting. Even if Grace was right, and Dom had known, I had kept my age a secret because I knew deep down that we were wrong.
“But look,” Quattro added more gently, “love makes a person crazy. I mean, look at my dad. He would have done anything, broken any law, if it meant keeping my mom alive. He’s been like the living dead since she died.” He actually looked disgusted, but it was hard to tell whether that revulsion was directed at me or his father. “But you’re right. I can’t do this. Not now.”
“Why? Because you’re on a moratorium? What’s up with that anyway?”