A wry, half-smile creeps up on my face. “Do you think I won’t love you back because of the scarring?”
“Hah. Scarring. Least of my problems. My head is a war zone and my junk is a dead zone. Not putting you through that.”
Goddammit, DeShaun.
“Even though something like that wouldn’t stop me?”
He rolls his eyes, letting his head drop back, looking slightly boneless. Another amused snort. “That’s why I would never let anything happen. You’d totally be all like, ‘I love you anyway.’” The last part is said with a high voice that doesn’t match mine at all. “You’d be all, ‘I’m Odd. My name is strange, but my heart is pure. And I love you anyway.’”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. Until it starts to suck for you. But you wouldn’t say anything because you’re kind. You’d just slowly grow to resent me, and then, with enough time, you’d hate me. And as much as I want to love you, if I thought you hated me…” He drifts for a minute, and I think he’s lost the thread, but he finds it again. “Shit, that would kill me. If you loved me and then stopped loving me? I’d never recover.”
He pops his eyebrows as he brings his shiny, glazed eyes to mine.
“So you’re never going to give me a chance?”
“Nope. Not a chance in hell,” he says, his lopsided grin hurting my heart.
“Well, thank you for being honest with me.” I curse myself for pushing this. I could’ve spared myself the pain of hearing him say it out loud.
“Oh no! I made you feel bad,” he says, patting the phone. “Just because I’m never gonna let you throw your life away on me doesn’t mean you should feel bad. I mean, come on, it kind of negates the point.”
“So there’s nothing I can do to convince you.”
“Nope,” he says, on a big breath, losing steam.
“What if we had an arrangement, where if I felt like I needed something you couldn’t give me, I could get it from somewhere else?”
He pats the phone again. “Disaster. You’re one of those all-in guys. You’d hate it if you needed supplemental D.” He lets out a labored breath. “God, you’d fucking hate it. You’re a one-man guy. Or a one-woman guy. You know what I mean. Not gonna make you contract out because of my shortcomings.”
His eyes get sad at that last part.
“So you don’t trust me to know what’s best for me?”
He shakes his head loosely from side to side, half-laughing to himself. “Hell no.”
“I guess that’s it then,” I say as reality finally breaks through my foolhardy dreams. “Man, I really would’ve waited for you.”
DB takes a deep breath and shakes his head, looking around, eyes clearer. “I know.”
I kiss my fingertip then touch it to the screen where his lips are. “Then this really is over.” Not that it ever began in the first place.
He blinks a few more times. “It has to be.”
10
DeShaun
Kill me. Just…kill me now.
It’s the morning after last night, and I can’t believe that I high-dialed Odd. This is a disaster. From stem to stern, from top to bottom, from start to end. A complete, unmitigated disaster. For years I’ve held my shit close to my vest. Years. One course of painkillers, and all of a sudden I’m telling everything. Fucking everything.
And I hurt him. I would’ve given anything to stop it. Anything.
I suppose it could be a good thing? Possibly. I don’t know. Maybe it will release him from trying to make something happen between us.
Though…nope. I don’t get to want things.
