“I don’t want you to repay me,” he muttered, shoving a hand through his hair. “You can’t come here again. It’s not safe.”
“Fine. But you can’t give me anything again. No more secret donations. No more keeping an eye on me. Thank you for your baffling generosity, but understand this. I can’t accept anything else from you. Ever.”
“Why?”
“Because, after all this, I think we both deserve a clean break.”
He was still a long moment as his eyes roamed my face, looking for something that he wasn’t going to find. “There was never going to be an us, Sloane. He made sure of that.”
I shook my head. “Your father is dead, Lucian. You’re the one who made sure there would never be an us.”
I headed for the door again, hoping to hold it together long enough to get out of the office. Two burly security guys were waiting for me in the hall. I paused in the doorway and turned around one last time. “I loved you. You know? When we were kids, I loved you. And I think I could have again.”
His eyes went stormy, but he stayed where he was and said absolutely nothing.
“By the way,” I continued. “Just because you’re done with me doesn’t mean you get to dump my mother too. She misses you, so pick up your goddamn phone and call her.”
“That’s not a good idea right now,” he hedged.
“Take her to lunch or dinner or whatever the hell you two do, and do it now or I will find new and creative ways to torture you for hurting her when she’s already grieving. Do not abandon my mother.”
“This a good time, boss?” Nolan said, strolling between the two guards. He looked up from the fat file in his hands. “Nope. Never mind. Very not good time. Good to see you, Blondie.”
36
Too Many Whammies
Sloane
Your podcast interview about Mary Louise is getting a lot of hits.”
“Really?” I asked, stirring my ice cream in a clockwise motion.
Kurt Michaels was smart, charming, and handsome. He told dad jokes and wore sexy cardigans and hot nerd glasses. Total dad material. Unlike some others who were just “daddy” material.
He held my hand. He opened doors for me. He listened carefully. He took an interest in things that were important to me, like Mary Louise’s case. And on our previous two dates, I had never once felt the need to fake an emergency or climb out a bathroom window. Also, he bore a striking resemblance to Michael B. Jordan.
But this was our third date, and I was having heart palpitations over the idea of sex. Not the good kind either. It wasn’t that I assumed Kurt was going to be bad in bed. I’d scoped out his dance moves from the Christmas concert video on the school’s Facebook page. The man knew how hips worked. Plus, we’d shared two perfectly pleasant kisses at the end of each previous date.
But I knew deep down—in the vagina region—that Lucian Rollins had ruined me. And I wasn’t mentally ready to accept just how badly.
Kurt’s dark, smooth hand reached across the table and squeezed mine. I jumped.
“Sloane,” he said expectantly.
“What?” I tried to remember if he’d asked me a question.
“I get the feeling that you’re somewhere else. Possibly with someone else?”
I winced, my single-girl-on-a-hot-date facade crumbling like a toy block tower. “It’s not exactly like that. I really like you,” I insisted.
“I’m pretty likable,” he agreed amicably.
“You’d make a great husband and father. And you don’t have any obvious red flags or impossible-to-overcome emotional baggage.”
He flashed me one of those sexy smiles. “What can I say? I’m a catch. Why don’t you skip ahead to the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ part?”
I groaned and stared at the half-eaten cup of rocky road. “I know everyone says this, but in this case, it’s true. It really isn’t you. It’s all me.”
He cocked his head like the hella-good listener he was. “You have feelings for someone else,” he stated.
“How did you—never mind. It’s not those kinds of feelings. More like I’m filled with rage and annoyance and frustration toward someone else. But also, seriously, how did you know?”
He blew out a breath. “I’m getting over someone else too. Or trying. She wasn’t ready for a relationship. So I’m attempting to move on.”
“Same, dude,” I admitted, slumping in my chair with relief. “Except I don’t want to get over him. I want to exorcise him. If never seeing him again isn’t an option, then I want to figure out a way to feel nothing.”
“That sounds like there are some very strong feelings still in play,” Kurt observed.
“Homicidal feelings,” I insisted. “He’s all wrong for me. He wants nothing I want. Hell, he doesn’t even want me. And I don’t even want him. We just have this physical connection that… And I shouldn’t be talking about this on a date with another man.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you just need some kind of closure before you can move on.”
“Believe me. I got all the closure any normal, sane person would need. But there’s this dumb sliver of idiotic romantic in me that wonders how a physical attraction can be so powerful, so good, when the rest is just hot garbage.” I winced. “Sorry. Tell me about your situation before I humiliate myself further.”
Kurt grimaced. “You might feel homicidal toward me if I tell you.”
I perked up. “Trust me. You can’t be any worse than I am.”
“You’re going to regret saying that,” he predicted.
He looked so earnest and concerned.
“This is going nowhere between us, right?” I confirmed.
“Unfortunately, that’s how it appears,” he agreed.
“Okay then. This should make you feel better. I ran into the guy I was seeing on our first date at Honky Tonk. He stupidly asked me to come back to his place, even though he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with me besides sex. Like a hormonal tramp, I stupidly let him get too close, ran a couple of bases with him in the hallway on our date, then told him to never speak to me again.”
He leaned back in his chair. “That actually does make me feel better.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Really? Lay it on me. It can’t be worse than my confession.” Feeling relieved and unburdened, I shoved a heaping spoonful of ice cream into my mouth.
“I’m in love with your sister.”
I choked on my rocky road, unprepared for the whammy. “Excuse me?” I rasped.
“Here,” he said, pushing a glass of water toward me. “You can drink it or throw it in my face.”
“Maeve?” I rasped.
He nodded, then swiped his hand over his face. “It started last summer. We met at the end of school assembly, hit it off, then had a summer fling. It was just supposed to be fun. She was busy. I’d just landed a job here. Obviously it was a terrible idea. She’s the mother of one of my students.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said.
“I know. I’m a monster,” he said.
“No! That you two were able to keep a secret like that in Knockemout.”
“You’re not mad?”
I shook my head. “I’m impressed. Keeping secrets in Knockemout is like training an army of cats to do your bidding. It’s just not possible. So why did you let my friends hook us up?”
He looked sheepish. “Part of me—a pathetic part—thought that if Maeve didn’t want to be with me, at least I could stay in her life. The incredibly stupid part of me thought maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if Maeve was a little…jealous.”
“Wow.”
“I’m not proud of it. And I was going to tell you tonight that I wasn’t over Maeve, right after I told you I wasn’t going to be able to have sex with you.”
“I wore granny underwear and didn’t shave my legs,” I confessed.
He grinned.
We were still laughing when we entered the parking lot ten minutes later. It was dark, and I’d chosen the café in Lawlerville to avoid another potential run-in with Lucian in Knockemout.
“So what are we going to do?” I asked him.
“Well, the obvious hijinks choice would be to fake date each other until our exes are overcome with jealousy. But seeing as how we’re adults and I’d hate to do any damage to your relationship with your sister, maybe we should go with option B.”