“Your brothers got it and didn’t reply so I’m not worried.”
Her lips pursed and she rolled her eyes. “So that is why you didn’t reply? You were sleeping? Or you didn’t when you saw it because they didn’t and you didn’t think you had to?”
“That’s a lot of questions. The answer is, if they aren’t, I’m not unless I need to. Do you want your phone going off three times every time you send one text?”
“Not really.”
“There you go.”
“Tell me why you slept late and then the call with your mother.”
They talked little about his relationship with his parents. She knew his father appeared to be out of the picture and he talked to his mother, but not if he was close like she was with her mother.
“Just a lot on my mind,” he said.
“Me?” she asked playfully.
She needed to know if he might regret what they’d done yesterday.
She sure the hell didn’t, but she didn’t know him well enough if she only added another layer to his life that he might not be able to balance.
“Mostly.”
There wasn’t much humor or happiness in his reply.
She got up and shut her door again so that her two staff didn’t hear more. When she returned to her seat, she asked, “Bad or good?”
“A mixture. Is it horrible to say that?”
Her heart thudded hard against her ribs as her grip on the phone tightened until her fingers ached. Her eyes burned with the sting of tears threatening as anger tangled with confusion with each emotion clawing at the other.
And beneath it all sat the ugliest thought of all that maybe she wasn’t enough. That somehow, she’d said or pushed him back into the dark she’d been trying so hard to pull him from.
“Not if it’s the truth,” she said, trying not to clear her throat. He couldn’t see her reaction and she’d be damned if she’d allow him to hear it. No way her pride, or her ego, would allow that.
“What we did, or have, I’m not sure what any of it means other than the guilt always seems to be there. I regret nothing, if that helps.”
“It does. I don’t want to add to the weight you’re carrying, Rory.”
“I know. You’re not. I’m feeling things with you I’ve never felt with another woman. I’m trying to get a handle on it. That’s not a bad thing, just something different.”
“Heard.”
“And I’ve upset you, haven’t I?”
She forced out a laugh. “No. It takes a lot to upset or hurt me.”
“I don’t think it does. I think you’re just really good at hiding your feelings because you grew up around your brothers and they’d pick on you about it. Take it from someone who has been hiding a lot most of his life. I can recognize it for what it is.”
Her shoulders relaxed. Few could see through her like that. Maybe that was why she was so twisted up inside over whatever the two of them had.
A common fight for the truth. That was at the top of the list. The rest would fall into place with her knowing he wasn’t here to stay and she couldn’t leave. She had to remember that most of all.
“You make me do and feel things I’m not used to either, so we share that as well. Is that bad or good?”
He laughed. “I don’t know. Just another thing to work through. I want to see you again. I don’t want one to cloud the other either, but I can’t make any promises.”
“I’m not asking for them and you’re not going to get rid of me that soon. If for no other reason than there are too manyunanswered questions. If we end up naked again, I’m not going to say no, but it’s not as if I expect it.”
