Page 36 of Until You

“Oh my God.” I hold my hands up. “I promise I wasn’t trying to take her place.” I put the heel of my hand against my forehead. Is that what it looked like I was doing?

“No. Tennyson. I didn’t think you were. I just wanted you to know that . . . hell, I don’t even know what I wanted you to know if I’m honest.” He sits down in the chair beside me, and leans back, his towel still clutched against his abdomen as he does.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we? Both apologizing when—”

“When there’s nothing to apologize for,” he finishes for me with a half-cocked ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Yes. Something like that.” I smile. I suddenly have more interest than I should in the paint chipping off my fingernails. “Look. These gifts weren’t meant to burden you with more obligations. My plan was to take them to their lessons. To give you a respite of sorts . . . if you want.”

Crew reaches out and places his hand over mine. A current of electricity jolts through my body despite going completely still. “Thank you. Truly. It was thoughtful and perfect and way better than shopping trips for clothes that will be forgotten in the back of the closet before the summer is over.”

“No need to thank me. They’re good kids.” My words are soft, suddenly feeling shy under the intensity of his gray eyes and the feel of his hand on mine.

“Besides, if those lessons mean I get a break for a few hours from watching YouTube tutorials on how to cut the perfect cat eye with eyeliner—or whatever the hell that means—then Jesus, I’m here for it with bells on.”

I burst out laughing. He has this uncanny knack for adding levity when we get caught in that awkward trap of attraction.

Or at least on my end it feels that way.

“I can’t help you there. I’m a little clueless about the current trends, and my YouTube watching is limited in scope—oh.”

It’s all I can think to say when he moves his hand from mine and shifts so that his towel falls off his lap. I’m greeted by the sight of an angry red scar that mars the lower right side of his abdomen.

I have no idea how I didn’t see it before. Obviously, I was too distracted by his physique and looking at the sexy tattoos the one other time I saw him shirtless—dirty and sweaty and hauling wood—that I never noticed the scars.

He was hurt in the line of duty.

Those scars show a lot more than hurt had happened.

“Crew.” His name is a mixture of disbelief and sympathy.

He smiles but it’s shaky at best before that charm of his kicks back in to mask it. “Just a few battle scars, is all.”

“You said you were injured at work. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I thought it was something less horrific.” Every word that comes out of my mouth makes me feel more and more like the idiot I am.

“Don’t apologize. It’s hard to think otherwise when I’m healthy . . . but if this whole situation has taught me one thing, it’s that sometimes the physical is way easier to heal than the mental.” He pauses briefly, averting his eyes as he does, and the expression on his face guts me.

He’s a proud man, and I have a feeling that admission of weakness, so to speak, just cost him. It’s in the way he shoves up out of his seat and moves about the patio—picking up swim goggles, moving a patio chair back to its rightful spot, pulling a raft out of the pool.

My heart breaks for him and whatever he has gone through and is still going through. There are so many things I could say, but I opt to sit in silence and let him have his moment.

I study him as I do. The scars call to me to look and wonder about their story, much like his tattoos do.

But I don’t look there. I don’t stare and ogle and make him feel any more uncomfortable than he already does.

Instead, I sit in the quiet around us. I catch a hint of the girls talking out of their open bedroom windows or the sound of a beetle making that buzzing sound I hear often. It’s only after Crew has picked up and reorganized everything that he can, that he moves back toward where I’m seated.

“I didn’t mean to make you talk about it,” I say softly.

“You didn’t. I volunteered.” He huffs out a self-deprecating laugh that does nothing to dissipate what feels like the sudden weight of the world on his shoulders. He meets my eyes as he absently runs a hand over the scar. “Just your average maniac looking to shoot to kill. Lucky for me, his aim was a little off that day.” He winks at me while I stare at him, lips lax. “Relax. It’s okay. I’m still here, maybe with a foot less of my intestines and some fragments lodged in some precarious positions.”

“And you’re joking about it.”

He dips his chin for a beat. “I have to. Besides, I couldn’t let the girls see how real shit got. They’d just lost their mother. The last thing they needed to think about was losing me too.”

And it’s that statement right there that sticks with me long after the girls run outside, unknowingly interrupting a deeper conversation than what looked like a poolside chat, and convinces me to check out the progress on their influencer studio. I examine the new ring light, their backdrop options of choice, and even let them show me a makeup tutorial or two, all while marveling about Crew and how open he is.

All the men I’ve known in my life have hidden their vulnerabilities. Would never admit that they’ve been affected by an event like that.