“I’d rather throw something together, if it’s all the same to you.”
“I didn’t mean you had to. Obviously I’m not much in the kitchen, but I can, like, boil water and throw some macaroni in it or something.”
She laughed. “Cooking calms me. It’s okay.”
“You won’t hear me complaining.”
“I’m so…fucking furious.”
He clamped his jaw shut, feeling her gaze fully on him now. Let it out, he thought. Now the brooding was over, she needed the outlet. Giving her all the space she might want so that she could gather her emotions into words, he only looked over at her and nodded.
“I don’t know how I can even express it. Usually I lash out at people who piss me off, but this is such a deep, deep hatred that it might destroy me to talk about it. I’ve never hated anyone this much. I fucking want to fucking explode and take that sonofabitch out with me by his fucking throat.”
Jared wanted to say he got it. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Only if another person had physically put Macy in the hospital all those years ago would he even begin to understand Starla’s anguish. Only the idea of Max somehow getting his hands on Starla came close.
“Yesterday, before he was attacked,” she began, “I told Brian everything. I told him I had to quit, and when he kept pushing me for a reason, I had to tell him why.”
Wow. He sat in amazed silence at that confession. She went on. “I took the step. I’m letting it go. Cutting it loose. I should’ve done it a long time ago. Hell, I shouldn’t ever have gone to work for Brian in the first place. It’s really the safest thing I can do. When he comes back…when he comes back, I have to be gone. I’m getting out entirely. It won’t hurt anymore then because I won’t have to see it.”
How could he argue? Except… “I think you’re fooling yourself if you think it won’t hurt anymore.”
Starla mulled that over in silence. “Well,” she finally said as he turned onto their dirt road, “it has to help a little. It can’t be any worse.”
“To leave a job and people you love? It might be.”
“I can still see them whenever I want. On my terms. I’ll have control.”
“Yeah. How did Brian take it?”
“Like Brian always takes things he doesn’t want to hear. He ranted a little, he told me the thought of us had crossed his mind a long time ago, but it wasn’t to be. Something we both know.”
“How did that make you feel? Better? Worse?”
She was a long time answering. “I don’t know. Neither, I guess. It is what it is. God, I hate that saying. And you know what else? I told my roommate I’m moving out. So I can start that search while I’m staying with you.”
He was proud of her. But he didn’t know how to say it without being patronizing. He also stopped short of telling her she could stay with him as long as she needed to, even though the words were crowding in his throat. Too many complications there. Then she said something that broke his heart. “My life isn’t much, but it’s mine. It’s time I start taking control of it.”
“I think you’re still convinced you have to punish yourself, though. And I think that’s bullshit. You’re perfect the way you are.”
He hadn’t expected to utter those words, and given her silence, she hadn’t expected to hear them. His knuckles tightened on the steering wheel as her scent floated over to tease at his senses, reminding him of having her thighs over his shoulders only a few nights ago. It felt like years. And now that his tongue had started wagging, he couldn’t seem to stop it. “You have a lot of love to give someone, Starla. That’s really a rare thing in the world.”
Glancing over at her, he saw her blink several times in the dim glow from the dashboard lights. “I have a lot to give, but no one has ever wanted it.”
“Maybe you only try to give it to people who don’t deserve it.”
“I’ve never tried to give love to anyone. I’ve never loved anyone, at least not in the sense that we were together and they loved me back.”
At the very least, Macy had loved him once. He truly believed she had. Over the years, she’d lost it, or she’d outgrown it, or whatever the hell had happened. He could fall facedown in a rut torturing himself for days trying to figure out where he went wrong. But then he would look at his beautiful daughters and tell himself that everything happens for a reason. Now these lovely little souls were here to bring light into his life, and oh, how they did.