Too Late

“No thanks. Apparently I’d have to hit you first, and that’s not my style.”

I bite my lip and hold my breath, fighting back tears. I’ve spent the last year and a half teaching myself how not to cry in front of assholes. I’ve got this.

“Take me back to my car,” I say.

He closes his eyes and rubs his hands over his face. He groans out of frustration, then clasps his hands together behind his neck. “I’ll take you after you eat something.”

I scoot over in the booth until my thigh meets his feet. “I’m not hungry. Let me out.”

He doesn’t move his feet, so instead I pull my legs up and stand up in the booth, then jump over him. I head for the door, never having wanted to get away from someone so quickly in my entire life.

“Sloan,” he calls after me. “Sloan!”

I swing the door open and walk outside—a rush of wind colliding with my face as I gasp for air. I bend over and put my hands on my knees, inhaling through my nose and out my mouth, over and over. When the threat of tears subsides, I straighten up and walk toward his car. The alarm beeps twice and the doors unlock. I turn around, but he isn’t following me—he’s still inside the restaurant.

Damn him. He just unlocked the car for me.

I slam the door as hard as I can after I climb inside. I wait for him to walk outside, but he doesn’t. Several moments pass, and I realize he has no intention of following me. He’s actually going to eat first. He’s an even bigger jerk than I thought.

I grab the baseball cap off the console and put it on my head, pulling it down over my eyes to block the sun. If I have to wait for him to eat lunch before he takes me back to Asa’s car, I might as well get a nap out of it.





“Can we get these to go?” I ask, handing our drinks to the waitress. “And the pizza?”

“I’ll have it right out,” she says. She walks away and I lean forward, dropping my head in my hands.

I have no idea what just got into me. I’ve never let a girl get to me like this. Much less a girl I’m not even dating.

But damn her! She’s so frustrating. I don’t understand how she can be so headstrong and confident when she’s around me, but at her own home she acts like Asa’s fucking doormat.

Then, out of the blue, she accosts me for being nice to her? What the hell? I realize some women are drawn to men like Asa. I’ve been in this career long enough to see that. But Sloan is different. She’s smarter than that. Which is why it’s so damn painful having to sit back and watch it, because I don’t know what’s keeping her there. Even if it’s not my place, I can’t be alone with her like this and not use it as an opportunity to convince her she’s better than this. Although, I’m pretty sure calling her a doormat and saying the shit I said isn’t how to convince her of that.

I’m a fucking idiot.

“Your order is at the counter,” the waitress says, handing me the bill.

I grab it from her and pay it, then head outside with Sloan’s food.

When I approach the car, I pause before opening the door. She’s sitting in the passenger seat with her feet propped up on the dash. She’s got my ball cap on, tugged down over her eyes. Her dark hair is swept over her right shoulder, spilling down over her arms that are folded across her chest.

Seeing her in her red dress the other night messed with my mind so bad, I didn’t sleep all night. But seeing her here...asleep in my car...wearing my ball cap?

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep again.

I open the door and she pulls her feet off the dash, but doesn’t pull the ball cap from over her eyes. She shifts her body more toward the passenger door, a move that causes me to wince.

I hurt her. She’s so damaged, and I hurt her even more.

“Here,” I say, holding the to-go cup out to her. She lifts the brim of the cap and looks up at me. I’m surprised to see that her eyes aren’t red. I assumed the hat was to cover up the fact that she was crying, but she hasn’t shed a single tear.

She takes the drink from my hands, so I hold the pizza box out to her. She takes it, and I slide into the driver’s seat. She immediately opens the lid to the pizza and grabs a slice, shoving it into her mouth. She turns the box so that the pizza is facing me, then lifts it to offer me a slice. I take one and start to smile at her, but remember she ordered me not to. Instead, I take a bite of the pizza and start the car.

We don’t speak on the way back to campus. She’s finishing up her third slice when we pull into the parking spot next to her car. She takes a big swig of her soda, then closes the lid to the pizza and places the box in the back seat.

“Take the pizza with you,” I say, my words ripping a hole through the silence and tension built up between us.

She places her drink in the cup holder and pulls off my baseball cap, smoothing back her hair. “I can’t,” she says quietly. “He’ll wonder where I got it.”

She shifts her body toward me and reaches between us into the back seat to grab her backpack. She faces forward again and tucks her backpack underneath her arms.

“I would thank you for lunch,” she says, “but it pretty much ruined my day.” She opens the car door and rushes out before I can process her words. When her door slams behind her, I kill the engine and get out of the car.

“Sloan,” I say, walking around my car until I reach her. She throws her backpack inside and shuts her back door. She opens the driver-side door and uses it as a barrier between us.

“Don’t, Carter,” she says, refusing to look up at me. “Don’t apologize. You made your point, but I’m too pissed to listen to apologies right now. So just don’t.”

She can tell me not to apologize all she wants, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting her get in that car before I say my peace.

“I’m sorry,” I say anyway. “I shouldn’t have said those things. You didn’t deserve that, but dammit, Sloan! You’re better than this. Give yourself some credit.”

She refuses to look at me when I speak, so I run my hand under her chin and tilt her face up to mine. She darts her eyes to the right, still stubbornly refusing to make eye contact. I squeeze between her door and my car and make my way around until she’s directly in front of me. I take her face in both hands, desperate for her to look at me. I need her to listen to what I have to say.

“Look at me,” I plead, keeping a firm hold on her face. “I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

She continues to keep her eyes locked on mine while a lone, thick tear trickles down her cheek. She wipes it away with the back of her hand before I have a chance to.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that same, uniform apology.”

My hands are still on her face and she’s looking at my chest, avoiding my eyes. I try to lift her face to mine, but she refuses to budge.

“It’s not the same, Sloan. You can’t compare me to him.”

She tilts her eyes up to the sky and laughs, trying to hold back more tears. “You’re no better than he is. The only difference between the two of you is that nothing Asa has ever said to me has hurt as much as what you said today.” She pulls my hands away from her face and climbs into her car. She reaches for the door handle and looks back up at me. “You’re no different, Carter, so don’t you dare judge me. Go save someone else.” She pulls the door shut and I’m forced to take a step back. I watch as she completely breaks down inside the car. She doesn’t look at me again, but I can see the tears spilling down her cheeks as she pulls away.

“I’m sorry,” I say again as I watch her drive away.





After everything I’ve done for her—after everything I’m doing for her—she better have one hell of a good excuse for putting me through this.

She’d be nothing if it weren’t for me. I took her in when she had nowhere else to go. If it weren’t for me, she would have had to crawl back to her crack-whore mother. Just based on the things she’s told me about her childhood, she’s way better off with me and she knows it. A mother who brings home a new sleazy husband every other month? I’d like to see her go back to that shit.

But if she’s fucking around, that’s the first place I’ll drop her off. I’ll be the first one to shove her right through her crack-whore mother’s front door—back into a trailer full of rotating step-fathers who get off on hiding in her closet while she changes clothes.

“Do you want me to try something else?” Jess says, pulling my focus back into the moment. She’s on her knees at the edge of the bed. “It’s not getting hard.”