“I don’t need any fucking handouts, Eva.” His emerald eyes narrowed. “I’ve got places I can crash, other people I can room with. Don’t do me any favors.”
My chest tightened. I wasn’t ready to let Cary go yet. Someday in the future, we’d be heading our separate ways, maybe only seeing each other on special occasions. But that time wasn’t now. It couldn’t be. Just thinking about it screwed with my head.
“Who says I’m doing it for you?” I shot back. “Maybe I just can’t bear the thought of not having you nearby.”
He snorted and ripped a bite out of his taco. Chewing angrily, he swallowed his food down with a long draw on his straw. “What am I, your three-year chip marking your recovery? Your celebratory token for Eva Anonymous?”
“Excuse me.” I leaned forward. “You’re mad, I get it. I’ve said I’m sorry. I love you and I love having you in my life, but I’m not going to sit here and get kicked because I fucked up.”
I pushed away from the table and stood. “I’ll catch you later.”
“You and Cross getting married?”
Pausing, I looked down at him. “He asked. I said yes.”
Cary nodded, as if that were no surprise, and took another bite. I grabbed my purse from where it hung on the back of my chair.
“Are you afraid of living alone with him?” he asked around his chewing.
Of course he’d think that. “No. He’ll be sleeping in his own bedroom.”
“Has he been sleeping in a separate room the last few weekends you’ve been shacking up with him?”
I stared. Did he know for a fact that Gideon was the “loverman” I’d been spending time with? Or was he just fishing? I decided I didn’t care. I was tired of lying to him. “Mostly, yes.”
He set his taco down. “Finally, some truth out of you. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten how to be honest.”
“Fuck you.”
Grinning, he gestured at my vacant chair. “Sit your ass back down, baby girl. We’re not done talking.”
“You’re being a jerk.”
His smile faded and his gaze hardened. “Being lied to for weeks makes me cranky. Sit down.”
I sat and glared at him. “There? Happy?”
“Eat. I’ve got shit to say.”
Exhaling my frustration, I slung my purse over the chair again and faced him with my brows raised.
“If you think,” he began, “that being sober and working steadily broke my bullshit meter, now you know better. I knew you were nailing Cross again from the moment you started back up.”
Biting into my taco, I shot him a skeptical look.
“Eva honey, don’t you think that if there were another man in New York who could bang it out all night like Cross, I would’ve found him by now?”
I coughed and nearly spit out my food.
“No one’s lucky enough to find two guys like that in a row,” he drawled. “Not even you. You should’ve had a dry spell or at least a couple of really bad lays first.”
I threw my wadded-up straw wrapper at him, which he dodged with a laugh.
Then he sobered. “Did you think I would judge you for getting back together with him after he jacked up?”
“It’s more complicated than that, Cary. Things were … a mess. There was a lot of pressure. Still is, with that reporter stalking Gideon—”
“Stalking him?”
“Totally. I just didn’t want …” You exposed. Vulnerable. Open to accusation as an accomplice after the fact. “I just had to let it play out,” I finished lamely.
He let that sink in, then nodded. “And now you’re going to marry him.”
“Yes.” I took a drink, needing to loosen the lump in my throat. “But you’re the only one who knows that besides us.”
“Finally, a secret you let me in on.” His lips pursed for a few seconds. “And you still want me to live with you.”
I leaned forward again, holding out my hand for his. “I know you can do something else, go somewhere else. But I’d rather you didn’t. I’m not ready to be without you yet, married or not.”