Sweet

Chapter Eight

For a few seconds, he just studied me, until I started to get nervous. What was he thinking?

I said, “What are you doing? Are we going in or just going to stand here all night?” If he wasn’t feeling mean what was he feeling? Riley wasn’t as easy to figure out as other guys.

“I’m wondering if I kiss you if somehow your father will know and smite me. That’s the word, right? Smite? Smited? Smitten?”

Smitten? No, that had not just come out of his mouth.

But my body started to tingle in anticipation, relief surging through me. He was asking for encouragement. I could do that, no problem, because I most definitely wanted him to kiss me.

“Are you going to kiss me?” I asked, completely confident he would now, with a little coaxing. “And no, you won’t be smote. My dad is a preacher, not God.”

“So what if I am going to kiss you? Are you down with that?”

“I’m good with it, but I thought you hated me,” I teased him, leaning on the door frame out of his touch, amused that he was asking for permission. It made me feel more confident, less at a disadvantage in that I probably liked him more than he liked me. “You said I’m like a little sister to you.” I wanted him to kiss me, but I also wanted to hear him say out loud that he was attracted to me. Hey, guys aren’t the only ones who need their egos stroked.

“Hate is such a strong word,” he said, reaching out and fingering the cross I wore around my neck, the one that had been a gift from my father for my sixteenth birthday. Pure gold. “I never said I hated you.”

Desire started to simmer as he leaned in close to me, as I anticipated the kiss I had somehow known we’d been heading toward all week, or at least hoping for. I opened my mouth and crossed my ankles, the tight ache between my thighs distracting.

Then he ruined it.

“I mean, I find you annoying and bratty, but I don’t hate you.”

Really? I tried to pull away, but he put his hands on the wall on either side of me, trapping my body against the house as he grinned at me.

“You’re an ass,” I said.

“I’m just being honest. Because you are bratty, even you have to admit that, but I also find you intelligent, sexy as hell, and strong. I like that you’ll take the public bus even though you have no clue what you’re doing and you’re scared. I like that you’re staying in this dump when you could probably call up Daddy and get money for a hotel, even if he doesn’t know where you really are.”

The last bit wasn’t even close to the truth, but I was too busy enjoying his compliments to correct him. Because Riley was right—I was all those things. I could be annoying and bratty, yet I liked to think I was somewhat smart, and I knew I was strong, tenacious. That he saw me for who I was did weird things to my inside that had nothing to do with sex.

“I admire that you’re willing to pitch in and pull up nasty carpet to help me keep my brother.”

“It’s no big deal.” But it was a big deal. All of it. All of this.

His lips barely brushed mine in the most innocent kiss I’d shared since middle school. It made me shiver again.

“Now you can tell me what you like about me,” he prompted, while I stood there struck silent.

It was hard to think with his arms engulfing me like they were, his mouth so close to mine. I wanted to run my fingers through the stubble of his beard and bite his bottom lip. But I managed to focus long enough to say, “You are definitely an asshole, but what I like is that you are so responsible, you take care of your brothers, you do what you have to do, and yet you still laugh. You have a sense of humor, and you don’t take yourself too seriously.”

“I guess we’re pretty fucking awesome, aren’t we?” he asked.

I nodded.

Then, without any clear signal from each other, we both went for the kiss, and it was a hot collision of mouth and teeth. It was hot and wet and perfect. Wow. And then wow some more. His stubble was rough on my skin, his hands gripping me tightly, and his mouth fought to dominate mine. It was a sexy, skilled kiss, and I was breathing hard and wanting more when we paused.

“I’ve been wanting to do this all week,” he muttered.

“Oh, yeah?” I hadn’t really known that. I wanted that, but I hadn’t been sure. At all. He had kept making it seem like we were friends and nothing more, and I had believed him. I had never been more glad to be totally wrong in my life. Feeling a little smug, I ran my tongue across his bottom lip. He gave a soft groan.

“Yeah. Every night I’ve been beating my dick like it owes me money.”

Really? I snorted. “Shut up and just kiss me. You’re better at that than talking.” But the truth was, I didn’t care what he said. I was excited, relieved, ready to take what he was offering and give him whatever he wanted, because I had managed to fall hard for him, fast, in a way that I never did.

He laughed.

As Riley pressed me against the house, hungrily kissing me, I clutched at his T-shirt, enjoying the feel of his hard chest. I had always been a girl who liked a muscular guy—not the juiced-up gym hardbodies—but a body like Riley’s, earned from lifting heavy materials and sweating through a day of manual labor. Going lower, I slipped my hands under his shirt, groaning a little into his kiss as my fingers touched that smooth, hot skin of his abs.

“Feel free to keep going lower,” he murmured, pulling his lips from mine.

Amused, I said, “That’s so nice of you.”

“I’m a giver.” But then he pulled his head back. “But maybe we should go in the house before the neighbors get jealous.”

He had a point. He took my hand, and pulled me inside, the door closing softly behind him. I let him push me back against the door, fingers entwined with mine, his mouth doing delicious things to my insides as he kissed me again and again.

Not every guy can kiss, and not every guy knew how to use his tongue, but Riley and I seemed to be a perfect fit, our tongues teasing in a perfect give-and-take.

I let my hand wander down and I found his erection, hard and thick in his jeans. “Hmm, what’s this?” Stroking him, I felt the tug of desire and wondered if we were really going to do this, take it further than just a kiss. I wanted to physically, there was no doubt, but there seemed to be a lack of urgency on his part.

But that was Riley. He did everything with that swagger and that smile, and why should this be any different? Yet I’d seen him burst out in anger, and I’d thought, somehow, that he would attack me with passion. Or maybe that was just my fantasy—that he wanted me so badly he had to have me now.

Instead he was now lazily nuzzling my neck and keeping his hands just above my ass.

Yet I was the one stroking his penis. Suddenly doubting myself, I wondered what he really wanted, how he really felt about me. So he didn’t hate me. And he liked certain things about me. But was that it? I was afraid to ask, so I went with what I knew would almost guarantee a positive response.

I popped the button on his jeans, hoping for a more aggressive reaction. “What’s in here?”

“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

That’s what every guy said. I was sure in his case it was true, given what I could feel beneath my palm, but I wanted something more from him, and I wasn’t sure what it was, exactly. So I kept fishing. “Are you pierced like Tyler?”

I meant it as a sexy tease, but his lips stilled on my neck and he pulled back. “Tyler has his junk pierced?”

“Yes,” I said, surprised. “You don’t know that?”

“Why would I know what my brother does with his dick?” Riley looked repulsed by the very thought. “And by the way, how do you know?”

Uh-oh. He didn’t know I had hooked up with Tyler. How could he not know? “Well . . .”

“I can’t believe the shit you girls talk about. I wonder if Tyler knows Rory is spilling about their sex life. And no, I am not pierced. I have no desire to have a needle shoved through my dick.”

I wasn’t sure what to do. I had to tell him the truth, or it would come out later and bite me on the ass hard, but how exactly did I say that? Then again, it wasn’t a big deal. It shouldn’t be a big deal. It was all pre-Riley and me, so who cared, right?

So I told him, “Rory didn’t tell me.”

Now his expression turned puzzled. “So then how do you . . .” And then he got it. He recoiled away from me. “Oh my fucking God! Are you telling me you’ve had sex with my brother?”

“Yes,” I said because I wasn’t a liar and I wasn’t ashamed. “I thought you knew.”

“Why would I know that?” he asked, his hands going up to push through his hair. “I don’t get detailed sex logs from Tyler. God! I can’t believe you were going to let me do this without knowing.”

“I thought you knew!” I said, starting to get pissed off. There was no deception or cover up. Nathan and Kylie and Rory all knew, so I just assumed Riley did, too. I was still against the door and I moved forward, but he took two steps back, hands coming out in a defensive posture, like I might attack him or something.

“What’s the big deal?” I asked, upset that I had opened my mouth and said anything, upset that instead of having him look at me like I was amazing, like he had been ten minutes earlier, he was eyeing me like I was a circus freak. World’s Sluttiest Girl.

“You fucked my brother! That’s a big deal!” Riley’s legs ate up the room in long strides as he went over to the coffee table and pulled a cigarette out of a pack lying there. I hadn’t seen him smoke all day, so it was a clear indicator he was stressed out. Cramming it in his mouth, he looked at me over the lighter as he flicked it on. “He’s . . . touched you. That’s messed up.”

“So what?” I still didn’t totally understand why he was so upset. “It was before I even met you.”

“He’s my brother!” He sucked hard on the cigarette and blew it out. “This isn’t just some random guy. Every time I look at him I’m going to think about the fact that he nailed you. That he had his dick in you first.”

Way to be rude about it. “Okay, I get that. But what am I supposed to do? It happened. We’re adults. Rory doesn’t have a problem with it and we’re best friends. Tyler doesn’t have a problem with being around me knowing I’m best friends with his girlfriend. None of us make it weird. Why are you making it weird? None of us walk around thinking about it.”

I waved my hand in front of me to break up the cloud of smoke. “And I thought you said you wouldn’t smoke in the house.”

“This requires nicotine.” Anger was simmering below the surface of his expression and he glared at me.

What did he have the right to be pissed about? “What do you want me to say?” I snapped. “I couldn’t predict that we would wind up here. Tyler’s my friend and we hooked up a few times.”

“You seem to fuck an awful lot of your friends.”

Oh, no, he didn’t. “Excuse me?” I asked, eyes narrowing, my voice cold. He was one wrong word from finding my hand on his cheek. I’d never slapped a guy before, but this might be the perfect opportunity to go all Scarlett O’Hara on him.

“Have you fucked Nathan? I know you’ve fucked Bill. And my brother. What about Grant? Am I the only one you haven’t had sex with? Forget about sloppy seconds, it’s more like sloppy fourths.”

There it went. My hand just flew up without me even thinking about it and connected with his cheek in the most satisfying slap of skin on skin. It knocked his cigarette out of his mouth and his head snapped to the side. I was shocked I actually did it, but at the same time, I was glad. Tears of anger and humiliation floated in my eyes and I blinked hard to make them disappear.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t. And never over a guy. Not happening.

When his head turned back, his eyes were dark and angry.

“Don’t you ever refer to me as sloppy anything.” I bent over and picked up the burning cigarette off the newly revealed hardwood floor and stubbed it out in the overflowing ashtray that I had been meaning to banish outside, my hand shaking from fury.

“Jessica . . . ,” he said, sounding contrite.

“Save it,” I told him. “I’m taking my slutty ass to bed. You can go fuck yourself because I never will.”

With that, I stomped down the hall. He started to follow me.

“Wait, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

I walked faster. “You meant it exactly the way it sounded.” When I sensed his arm reaching out for me, I started running. Once in Jayden and Easton’s room, I slammed the door shut in Riley’s face and locked it.

“I’m sorry.” He tried the knob and then pounded on the door. “Let me in, Jess. I’m sorry. I don’t think you’re a slut.”

“Yes, you do! Now go away.” I wiped the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand, my stomach tight. Asshat. He had no right to talk to me like that.

“Come on! We need to talk about this.”

“Talk to someone who gives a shit.” Resolutely, I put my phone in the speaker dock, blasting bouncy pop music that I knew would irritate the hell out of him.

After a minute, the knocking on the door stopped and I figured he had retreated to get away from the bubbly sultriness of Britney Spears. I could practically hear the sound of him popping open a beer, which is what I knew he would do. I had gotten to know Riley over the past week. Or so I’d thought. Okay, I could see that it might be weird to hear about me and Tyler at that particular moment, but what was he expecting? There was no purity ring on my finger, and what I did prior to him was no one’s business but mine.

I could have lied about it. But I had wanted to be totally honest with him and what had that gotten me?

Sitting on Easton’s bed, back against the wall, I bit my fingernail and hated on men and their goddamn double standards. When the glass of the window suddenly rose, I jumped. Riley’s head appeared in the open space.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, getting up to turn down the music. “Are you insane?”

He shoved the window completely up. “You wouldn’t open the door,” he said, like that was some kind of explanation. “We’re not done with this conversation.”

“Oh, I’m done.” But I watched in fascination as he yanked out the screen and it disappeared behind him, and then threw his arms over the window frame and started to haul his body into the bedroom window. “What are you standing on?” That window was a good eight feet off the ground.

“The picnic table.”

I refused to think this was hot. It wasn’t. Or if it was, it still didn’t change the fact that he was a jerk. It didn’t matter that having a guy break into my bedroom to force me to talk to him was sexy, in a masculine, brutish kind of way.

He was too big for the window. He got halfway in and then he looked wedged, arms and head in, shoulders caught. There was a distinct sound of cotton tearing as his shirt caught on the aluminum frame. Served him right.

“A little help here,” he said. “I’m stuck.”

Help? Yeah, I could help him. So I shoved him. He barely moved, but he got my intent.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“I’m helping you out of the window,” I said, and shoved him again, harder this time, and he went backward, his shoulder finally free of the window frame. “That’s what you asked for.” Because it felt so good to get out my frustration, I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed a third time.

“Knock if off, Jess,” he warned, as he grappled to hold on, losing his balance, his feet hitting the picnic table.

“Or what?” I pushed him yet again, high on the sensation of being in control after he’d made me feel so lousy.

His eyes narrowed, and I could hear the scraping of his boots on the house, could see the white of his knuckles as he tried to pull himself back up and not fall on his ass on the picnic table. At least his shoulders weren’t stuck anymore. He should be grateful.

He didn’t precisely answer the question, which was a point for him. Instead of threatening me, he simply said, “I’m not backing down until you talk to me.”

“What?” I asked, cupping my hand to my ear. “I can’t hear you over the flapping sound of my loose vagina.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, and he almost laughed. “Is that what that noise is?” he asked. “I thought it was the air conditioner.”

Ha ha. “You’re a prick.” I picked up a magazine, determined to ignore him. Flipping through it, I tried to get invested in the many sexy ways Selena Gomez styled her hair, but I was too distracted by Riley dangling from the windowsill.

“I’m coming in whether you like it or not,” he told me. “Now you can open your door for me or I can rip the window frame out and climb in this way. The choice is yours.”

I thought about it and decided I had a perfect solution. Without a word, I got up and went over to the door to the hallway and unlocked and opened it.

“Good,” he said, sounding surprised. “Great. I’ll be there in a second.”

Listening, I heard his boots hit the back patio, then heard him open the back door and come into the kitchen. At that point I got back up and closed my door again and relocked it.

A second later he realized I had tricked him. “Jessica! Damn it!” His fist hit the door.

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. It was entertaining to get the best of him. “Yes?”

Then he did something that I wasn’t prepared for. He said, “Please open the door. I really would like the chance to apologize to you face-to-face.”

Crap. How could I continue being petty if he was going to be reasonable? It was a surefire way to ruin my ability to snark. With a sigh, I went to the door yet again and pulled it open. “Yes?” I asked, leaning on the door. “I’m very busy reading about sexy summer hairstyles.”

He gave me a sly smile. “You have sexy summer hair.” His fingers reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear.

Seducing me was not going to work. Well, it was working a little, but he still had some explaining to do. I just gave him a stony stare.

Riley dropped his hand. “I’m sorry about the comment I made. I didn’t mean to suggest that you . . . well, anyway, I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

“Yes, you were.” Then because I didn’t hold grudges, I said, “Apology accepted.”

He nodded. “Thanks.” Then he looked at his hand. And the floor. And behind my shoulder.

I waited, curious what brilliance was going to come out of his mouth next.

“I said that, not because I think you’re a slut, but because well, I was upset that you had sex with my brother.”

My eyebrows raised and I crossed my arms over my chest, the glossy fashion magazine still in my hands. “I caught on to that, yes.”

“But you don’t get it, do you?” he asked.

“No, not really.”

“Think of this way. What if I told you I had sex with your sister?”

“I don’t have a sister.”

He made a sound of impatience. “You know what I mean. Okay, say that you found out today when we were fooling around that I had sex with Kylie last year. How would you feel about that?”

A stab of jealousy pierced my chest and I asked, before I could stop myself, “Did you?”

“Ha, exactly,” he said in triumph. “No, I did not have sex with Kylie, but your first reaction was one of anger. You didn’t want to think that I did, because the truth is, none of us want to think that someone we care about has been naked with someone we’re attracted to. Picture me with Kylie. How does it make you feel?”

I had an active imagination. Before I could put the brakes on it, an image of Riley over my roommate rose in my brain. He was enthusiastically giving her oral sex. It was a visual I could have done without. “Okay, I get it. Yes, I would be upset. Pissed.”

“It just really caught me off guard,” he said. “And the whole penis piercing thing . . .” He actually shuddered. “Disgusting. It’s all messing with my head, making me jealous.”

Begrudgingly, I loosened the death grip on my magazine. “Fine. But you took it a step too far. You didn’t say the word ‘slut,’ but you definitely implied it loud and clear. I mean, sloppy? Ouch.” I wanted him to understand where I was coming from. “I don’t need to be judged, Riley. I’ve had my parents judging my morality my whole life and I don’t have the patience for it.”

“You’re right, and I’m sorry. I was being an asshole. But I don’t get it. Why would you and Tyler have sex? It’s not like you ever had feelings for each other.” Then he grimaced. “Or did you?”

“No.” I shook my head. “The thing is, a lot of guys and girls are attracted to each other on some level. But that’s not the same as being attracted to them, if you know what I mean.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” he said flatly.

Maybe I didn’t either. I tried to explain it, frustrated by the frustration on his face. “It’s not about emotional feelings. It’s about physical feelings.”

That I had to explain that to a guy just seemed stupid. It felt like he was purposely not understanding me. Guys were all about the booty call. But maybe what was so difficult for him to comprehend was that a girl could regard that in the same way a guy did. They were used to girls being clingers, assuming sex equaled a relationship.

“So you just get your clit licked and it’s all good?” he asked dryly.

Bingo. Though I could do without the disdain on his part. I didn’t know a guy alive who didn’t like to get head, given that they all asked for it and were shocked and horrified when I refused.

“Why is that so hard for you to grasp? Guys hook up with girls all the time and they don’t care about them at all. Maybe, and I know it’s hard to believe, but maybe sometimes girls do the same thing. Gasp. Horror. Maybe, just maybe, girls like to get off, too, for no reason other than that it feels good.” I opened my magazine and started pointing to random chicks on random pages. “I bet she likes to have orgasms. I bet she does, too. And I bet this one, I bet she even masturbates.” I lowered my voice. “Can you believe it?”

He made a sound of impatience and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not saying girls don’t have sexual feelings. I’m glad they do. I appreciate enthusiasm. But I guess to me it makes sense to either be with someone you’re in a relationship with or to be with a one-night stand. I don’t get this crossing-the-line-with-friends thing. How do you keep it separate? It seems to me like you’re just sticking your finger places it shouldn’t be stuck.”

I bit my lip, suddenly feeling sad. He didn’t get it. And if he didn’t get it, did he get me? And why did it matter that he got me? Other than that I didn’t want to be put in that category of women that men didn’t respect. Because I didn’t deserve that. “Maybe to me it makes more sense to be physically intimate with a friend, someone who knows you and cares about you, that you trust, than to have sex with a total stranger you’ve met in a bar.”

He nodded, but he didn’t say anything, his brow furrowed.

“So what were we doing here, Riley?” I asked, the fight gone from me, a heavy sense of disappointment falling over me, a blanket of negative emotion. “It’s hard to classify me as a one-night stand given that I’m living in your house.”

“Oh, I don’t do one-night stands,” he said, and his arms dropped to his sides.

Something about the way he was looking at me . . . I felt my heart rate kick up a notch. “No?”

“No. I never have.”

The magazine suddenly became a shield between us. I clutched it tighter to my chest, well aware of the goose bumps raising on my arms and the way my nipples were hard. “You’ve never had a one-night stand ever?” I tried to snort in derision, but it came out sounding like a shaky laugh. “Please.”

“I haven’t. Not my thing. I totally agree with you. I wouldn’t want to have sex with someone I don’t know, don’t trust, don’t care about.”

My cheeks felt hot and I licked my lips nervously, tilting my chin up so he wouldn’t see how vulnerable I suddenly felt. “So I guess you understand the friends with benefits thing better than you realized. Or maybe you would have if we hadn’t been interrupted.”

But he slowly shook his head and I shivered. “Nah. I still don’t get it.”

“Well, then you make no sense,” I told him flatly, unnerved by the way he was looking at me. When he reached out and touched my cheek, stroking the back of his hand on my skin, I jerked away. For some reason, I wanted to believe he was making fun of me. Yet I was almost certain he wasn’t. Which meant that instead of being able to retreat behind anger and indignation, I was going to have to face something that seemed scary as hell.

“I think what we can conclude here is that while I didn’t say them out loud, my thoughts were running more along the relationship line.”

“Oh,” I said, though my brain had stopped functioning the minute the R word came out of his mouth.

“So what do you think? The princess and the prick . . . it could work. Or at least we could give it a shot.”

My mouth filled with hot anxiety. “You want to have a relationship with me?” I asked, the very idea sending my thoughts galloping in opposite directions. On the one hand, the concept made me want to run away screaming, slamming the door shut behind me. On the other hand, there was something super hot about having Riley Mann as my boyfriend, even if that word made me want to choke on my saliva. “I thought you said you don’t do relationships.”

He’d said that at Nathan and Bill’s, quite clearly. Maybe he had been joking. But I couldn’t grasp that he would actually want to be with me, in the way you are with someone you’re exclusive with. I also couldn’t grasp that part of me wanted to jump straight into his arms and say yes to it. I didn’t give up control like that, I didn’t.

“I don’t. Or I haven’t in a while. Maybe we shouldn’t call it a relationship then, exactly. I mean, it’s only been a week we’ve been hanging out. Maybe it’s more like dating.”

The relief I felt was actually scary. It was like when you skid while driving in the snow and are sure you’re going to hit the guardrail or another car and then you don’t and suddenly your heart rate jacks up in relief and you gasp for air. Relationship = risk.

Yet on the heels of the relief was a profound disappointment.

What the hell was wrong with me?

“What’s the difference?” I asked. “Isn’t dating a relationship?”

Riley shook his head. “Nah. It’s totally different. Dating is what you do pre-relationship, to see if you want a relationship. You hang out, have fun together.”

“Isn’t that a friendship?” And were we really having this conversation?

“No.” Riley leaned on the dresser and shook his head, looking totally confident in his logic. “Because when you’re dating, there is an understanding you both are thinking you’d like it to be more than friendship. So even though you’re not having sex, you want to and plan to.”

Say what? “Wait a minute. You don’t have sex when you’re dating?” I wasn’t sure I understood these categories. “But weren’t you planning to have sex with me just now?”

He shrugged, looking a little sheepish. “I might have been jumping the gun a little. Trying to skip a step.”

I rolled my eyes. “So having sex now, pre-relationship or dating, would have made us friends with benefits and we can’t have that.”

“No! We’re not actually friends, you know. You can’t be friends with someone you want to have sex with, you just can’t.”

“You’ve been saying we’re friends all week! So if we’re not really friends, then you want me to be a booty call, clearly.” I knew he didn’t, but his whole insistence that we define and label whatever the hell we were doing was completely irritating. And we weren’t friends? Weren’t people in relationships supposed to be friends? Or was I even more freaking clueless than I thought? And I didn’t like being offered friendship by him, something I had actually really liked and appreciated, and now have him trying to take it away.

“No, damn it. A booty call is someone you just have sex with, nothing else. No hanging out, no conversation. You just text and make plans to hook up.”

“I’m guessing you don’t spend the night either.”

“No, of course not.” He sounded frustrated, which was exactly how I felt.

“You’ve given this so much thought it scares me.” I tossed my magazine on the floor and myself on the bed. “You’re worse than a girl and I’m done with this conversation.”

I wasn’t sure why I felt bad, but I did. This felt like rules, like a way for him to control me. I knew in my head he didn’t mean that, he was just trying to be clear, but it just made me edgy, like I was right to stay away from relationships because I didn’t know how to do this. Why did it have to be so complicated?

When he came over and tried to sit on the bed with me, I waved him away. “Just leave it for now, Riley, seriously. I’m exhausted and I can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?” he asked, voice exasperated. “We’re discussing us.”

“There is no us,” I told him, feeling cranky and bitter. “You just said we’re not even friends.”

“You’re twisting my words and you know it.”

“Go. Away.” I felt like I just might have a meltdown on him if he didn’t leave me alone. And when I melt down, I say mean things. They just fly out of my mouth like darts, and I can’t stop them. So it was better in the long run for both of us if he got the fuck out of my way.

For a heart beat, he hesitated. Then he just nodded briefly. “Fine. Good night.”

Rolling toward the wall, I closed my eyes and formed praying hands. “Night.”

Yes, I was conscious that I left the “good” part out.

What can I say?

He was the one who seemed to think I was deserving of my last name.

I knew that when I was hurt, I wasn’t all that nice.

And he had sliced me deep in several spots.

Which meant if he had the power to hurt me like that, I was falling hard for him, and it was better if we didn’t start down a path that was going to result in me being pathetic.

It was small comfort at the moment that I was preventing myself from future weight gain from heartbreak. Someday my ass would thank me, but now it just sucked.