I think about it and shake my head. “Disappointed, actually. I assume because I didn’t whine after him like I always did before.”
Sam scratches his chin, assessing me. “So, why did your previous arrangement stop? Had it just run its course?”
I shake my head again, smashing the pillow over my heated face while pulling the duvet up to my chin.
“Hmmm. I take that as ano. What happened, Ronan?”
I let out a frustrated sound and shake my head again.
“Ro?” Sam asks, gently pulling back the pillow. “What happened?”
I grab for the pillow again, and he pulls it out of my reach.Damn whippersnapper. I pull the duvet over my head and mumble fast, “ItoldhimIlovedhim.”
“I’m sorry, what?” he asks, pulling the duvet off my face.
I sigh and sit up, leaning back against the headboard as I cross my legs. Hanging my head, I pull at a thread on my T-shirt. Letting out another big breath, I peek up at Sam through my lashes, all very French and dramatic.
“I told him that I love him. It was anaccident. A heat-of-the-moment sort of thing.”
Sam’s eyes widen and he shakes his head, clutching his shirt, unable to imagine the horror.
Welcome to my world, young one.
“What did he say?”
“He ran out like his ass was on fire. Said he was no good for me.”
Sam rubs his eyebrow. “Really? I mean, maybe he’s secretly a terrible person, but…how could he think that he wasn’t good enough for you?”
I gesture broadly, nearly taking out the lamp on the nightstand. “That’s what I want to know! I was standing there in the damn hallway, with nothing but a sheet wrapped around me, and all of a sudden, it was like he was speaking to me in Mandarin. We’d been fucking for a year. I couldn’t imagine why he’d ever think that way about himself.”
Sam blows out his cheeks and scoots next to me on the bed, his back to the headboard. “He served for a while, right?”
“Yeah. Marines.”
“Maybe he regrets something he did while on duty? War makes good people do bad things.”
I shake my head. “If there’s one thing I know about the man, it’s that he’d never intentionally harm another person, unless it was to save the life of an innocent.”
And also because I may have looked up his records with a bit of help from Jake.
Taking my hand, Sam adjusts to face me. “Then…he believes something about himself that isn’t true, and until you know what it is, none of his choices will make sense.”
Well, shit.
Ain’t that the fucking truth.
I open my mouth, only to shut it again.
I’m really beginning to hate that this kid has a better head on his shoulders than I do. Just as I’m about to fall face-first into my third…maybe fourth existential crisis of the weekend, there’s a loud knock at the door.
“You expecting someone?” I ask, remembering—inconveniently—that Rafi mentioned something about him and Everett getting shot here not that long ago. Come to think of it, that might explain the new hardwood floors.
Sam blinks at me, a sheepish expression on his face.
"What's that look mean?"
"It means that I have fallen into the company of old gossips.” I squint my eyes at him as he continues, “Old, interfering gossips who go by the names Odd and Mama Bash."
