A slither of apprehension snaked through his veins. Jesus. First her job, and now her living situation? “Bad like how?”
“Fighting, mainly. This guy is a piece of shit. No job, no plans to get one. Drunk most of the time, or high, or something. My roommate doesn’t care if he lives on our couch and mooches off us forever. It’s getting ugly.” Suddenly, she growled with frustration and shoved her hair back from her face, holding it in place. “My God, all I do is dump problems on you. I’m a walking, talking, fucking train wreck. Honestly, you can take me home right now if you want to, and I wouldn’t blame you a bit.”
“I’m not doing that. Not unless you tell me to.”
She dropped her hands and met his gaze. The truck rumbled patiently and seconds ticked by while she stared at him. “I should. For your own damn good.”
“Don’t worry about my good.”
“I’m going to fix my problems. New job, new place to stay.”
He gave her one brief nod. “All right.”
“Seriously, I decided that last night. I’ll tell Brian soon—it’s just hard, you know? I mean…it’s like, when I’m not at work, it seems like the obvious solution, yeah, I need to do this, but when I’m there, and I know he’s back in his office and all I have to do is go in and tell him I’m out…I can’t make myself move.”
“You need a backup plan in place first, right? Somewhere else to go?”
“Yeah, but I want to tell him I’m leaving before I start looking. I don’t want to look for another job behind his back.”
“Gotcha.”
“It would help tremendously if I knew what the hell I wanted to do. I love what I do. Love it.” Such passion filled her voice that he didn’t doubt her for a second. “We have friends in Dallas who own a parlor. I’ve thought about going there before, but I don’t want to move that far. But I guess I need to shut up and do what I have to do, huh?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s no reason you should do something that makes you unhappy. The idea is to improve things, right?”
“Right,” she said glumly.
“You should talk to Brian, Starla. There has to be another solution. You don’t want to leave that job. I can tell you don’t.”
“I don’t, but…”
“But what?”
She drew a deep breath, held it. Cast her gaze down at her lap. “Getting away from Brian Ross is the only way I’ll be able to move forward with my life.”
He wanted to be sympathetic. He wanted to offer comfort, assurance. But what came out was “Bullshit.”
Starla’s gaze snapped to his, her brows knitted above her dark eyes. He’d expected that anger. Damn if he was going to let it cow him. “I think I know better than you,” she bit out. “I told you we didn’t have to talk about these things if you’re—”
“No, I want to talk about it. Stop letting this dictate your life. He’s never going to love you. Face it. I had to. Macy is never going to love me. You get over it, and you move on.”
“Oh yeah? And that worked out for you how? You let Macy wreck your fucking marriage.”
“I did. I was weak, and I hurt a good woman, and now we have two little girls paying the price. So if you want to go that route, if you want to let this fester and eat at you and doom every relationship you have and every decision you make for the rest of your life, then be my guest. Been there. But I don’t recommend it.”
He glared hard at her as she jerked around and stared stonily through the windshield. “Take me home.”
“No.”
“You said you would.”
“You said you’d fix your problems. I’m giving you the best, the only solution. It’s the only thing that’s going to make you feel better, Starla. I know how hard it is to let go. I couldn’t. For years.”
“How?” she cried suddenly, and it ripped at his heart. “How do you let go when—they’re—they’re the only—one you’ve—” Sobs began punctuating her words, and finally she couldn’t finish. Jared lifted the console between them and scooted toward her, pulling her into his arms. She went, to his amazement—he’d expected her to resist, and he would have let her, would have taken her home if she insisted. Her tears soaked his shirt; her fists clutched at it now just as they had last night…only then, it had been passion driving her, not anguish. He leaned his cheek into her silky hair, stroking her shaking shoulders.