“What else?” He kissed her quickly, then tucked her head back under his chin, maybe knowing it’d be easier for her to talk if she didn’t have to look at him. “About me. Something must have prompted that question.”
She contemplated lying, but at this point she was in for a penny. “I saw you talking to Melanie’s mom.”
“At the showcase?”
She nodded.
He grunted. “Melanie saw me and wanted to show me her artwork. Becky came up while she was showing me.” He moved under her. “Were you jealous?”
She couldn’t tell if his tone was disbelieving or pleased. Maybe both? “Did you date her?”
“Becky? No. Why would you ask that?”
“I saw you arguing with her,” she admitted.
“What? When?”
“The night we met. Earlier in the night before we…met. It looked like a lover’s spat.”
“Ah.” He shifted from side to side. “You know Melanie is a VACA case, right?”
“Yeah.”
He sighed. “Becky’s doing the best she can, but she’s the kind of woman who needs a man to take care of her, and she’s not exactly selective about who that man is.”
“She wanted you to be that man,” Abby said.
“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t want to be.”
“No,” he said simply.
“Why not?”
“To put it bluntly, she’s a hot mess and needs to figure her own shit out before she drags another man into Melanie’s life.”
Yeah. That was blunt.
She thought about their current position, tucked into the corner of her closet. “Am I the kind of woman who needs to be taken care of?”
“No.”
No. That was it? Just, no? She frowned. “What kind of woman am I?”
He tilted her chin up again. “The kind of woman who can take care of herself and everyone around her. The kind of woman who saves her breakdown for the closet so no one else will see. The kind of woman that makes a guy like me want to take care of you. Because I see the burdens you carry, and I want to lighten the load.”
Well, fuck. Her vision blurred as tears immediately filled her eyes. That was the nicest thing a man, hell anyone, had ever said to her.
“You wanna unload some?” he asked. “You’ve had a hell of a lot going on the last few weeks.”
Abby hiccuped and tucked her head back down. “I think I really did just need to cry. I was exhausted and looking forward to going to bed. Instead, I had to be mean mom, which always makes me feel like shit. I could tell Olivia was upset because I was upset.”
She paused and continued in a whisper, “Then I jumped on you, and you shut down and left.”
“I left because your mom said I should. I figured she knew better than I did. What do you mean I shut down?”
“It was the look on your face,” she said. “It was just…blank.”
