Danny took a deep breath and tossed his hair. “Look, I have a problem. I didn’t tell either of you before because I thought I had a handle on it, but I don’t. My therapist says I’m addicted to sex.”
Rachel snorted. “Go to hell, Danny. And lose my number.” She clenched her fists and stormed off into the parking lot. For some reason, I stayed.
“But you’re only twenty years old,” I said. For some reason, it was hard to accept that someone so young could have an addiction like that. It was even harder to accept that out of all the boys I could’ve fallen for, I’d chosen the sex addict from church.
“Apparently, I’m going to struggle with it my whole life. But I’m getting counseling and going to SAA meetings.”
“SAA?”
“Sex Addicts Anonymous.”
I’d never heard of such a thing, but right then it didn’t matter. My despair crashed like a wave. “I thought you loved me.”
“I do,” he promised, looking at me with incredible earnestness. “The last thing I want is to lose you. I just can’t help myself.”
It was just like my dad had said:Sometimes these things happen, and there’s nothing you can do.
When I got home, I collapsed into a pile of limbs on the floor of my bedroom and cried like I’d never cried before, the kind of crying you can only do as a teenager. I had a bottomless well of sorrow to draw from—it just kept coming and coming. The depth of pain was astounding; just as bad, if not worse, than what I’d felt with my dad. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.
That,there—that was the worst part. The rawest nerve. I’d given Danny my heart, and it had made me powerless.
Eventually, the well of tears ran dry. I lay there on my bedroom floor, tile cool against my cheek, and closed my eyes, ignoring my mom’s gentle knocks on the door. As I drifted off to sleep, I knew one thing for certain: I’d been betrayed twice now, and I never,everwanted to feel this way again. If this was the way the world worked, the least I could do was never allow myself to be taken by surprise.
It hurt all the way until college. But once I was on campus, something shifted. Two weeks into the semester, Danny called me out of the blue to beg for me back and I realized I feltabsolutely nothing. The well was finally fully tapped. Instead of feeling sad about it, I felt free. I told him no thanks, hung up the phone before he was done reacting and reveled in what would turn out to be the most addictive feeling in the world:Iwas in control. It felt infinitely better to be the one doing the hurting.
Unfortunately, it turned out I’d been staring at Rachel for a long time, adrift in memories. Which probably explained why she did an abrupt about-face and beelined in the opposite direction, nearly mowing down a couple of gauzy-winged fairies in the process.
Oh, well. I didn’t blame her. I was a reminder of a humiliating experience—maybe the most humiliating experience of her life. I wished I could say the same.
“Here you go,” came a voice, and I jumped, my first thought,Danny? But how?
But it was only Ben, holding two literal sheep’s horns.
He gave me a quizzical look.
“Dozed off,” I lied, accepting one of the horns. “What is this?”
“Peek inside,” he said, and tipped the end of his horn to his mouth.
I looked inside—and found wine.
“But we’re on the clock,” I sputtered.
Ben waved a hand. “We collected a ridiculous number of signatures and gave out all our pamphlets. Janus’s office already wants to talk. Kaitlyn’s got the rest. It’s Stoner o’clock.”
He tugged me down onto a stone bench, the legs carved like bending leaves. The bench was shaded by a large oak tree, and the stone was cool on my thighs through the layers of my dress.
We sipped our wine in silence, watching people walk by. I made sure not to look anyone in the eyes so as not to trigger any more humiliating portals to the past.
Ben turned to me. There was a ring of red wine along the outline of his lips. He was close enough that I could feel the heat from his body as he shook his head. “I say thisextremelygrudgingly, but maybe I was wrong when I said having to hang out with you was worse than the worst thing I could imagine. It’s not all bad.” He nudged the Beerwolf. “There’s swag.”
The look in his eyes was the same look from the night we’d met. Hours after I’d crushed him in tequila shots, and he’d crushed me in darts, and we’d woven our way through the other law students, dismantling their drunk arguments one by one, grinning at each other while their cheeks flushed with indignation, two discursive outlaws. This was the look from the end of the night, when he’d gone home, and I’d stubbornly followed. He’d opened the door to his studio apartment, and I’d walked in—and suddenly, for the first time all night, I turned shy. I was overwhelmed by the feeling that I’d accidentally stumbled onto something important,someoneimportant, and I was in over my head. Instead of moving to his bed, I sat on the concrete floor with my back against the wall.
He hadn’t said anything, just dropped down beside me. And knocked his knee against mine. When I’d finally braved a look, this was what I’d seen.Thisface. Unfairly beautiful Ben Laderman studying me at close range, his eyes shining with amused challenge.
Heat spiked through me. I slipped my hand into his like I’d done that night long ago and laced our fingers.
Ben’s hand tensed. I blinked and realized instantly what I’d done.
