Page 38 of Bulletproof

Me, too, but in a fantasy way, not in a possibility-of-actually-happening way.

“But I find I also want to just sit and talk to you and try to figure out what’s going on in your head.”

I swallowed hard.

“We can be friends, Angel, but when I take other men home and you go home alone to an empty bed, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

He sounded very sure of himself, and something clicked in my brain.

“You’ve never been in love.”

“What?”

“You haven’t,” I assured him. “Because if you ever had been, you’d understand that going home alone sucks, being alone sucks, but you do it because you have no choice. I can look at other people, look at you, and think, Wow, but I’m never gonna do anything about it because I’m in love. I respect myself too much to have some casual hookup that could jeopardize the life I clearly want more than anything.”

“That was quite a speech.”

“I need to be crystal clear with you if we’re going to be any kind of friends. I value myself enough to be honest.”

“It’s very alluring—your discipline—but are you certain your man deserves your sacrifice?”

I scoffed.

“Angel—”

“It’s not a sacrifice on my part to not sleep with you.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like⁠—”

“If I slept with you, I would just be another guy you fucked, and you would just be standing in for the guy I really wanted and who I was building my life with.” Because as mad as I was, as lonely, as hurt, Sam Kage was still the only man I took off my clothes for. “So, us is never gonna happen.”

“Angel—”

“I gotta go, Cris. I’ll talk to you later.”

“No, don’t do that. Don’t blow me off. I’m sorry, okay? I don’t get the opportunity to have people in my life I don’t have to worry about, who I can just trust to not fuck me over, so c’mon. Forgive me already. Let’s go eat.”

I wasn’t sure. It had sounded like it was going bad fast.

“Angel …” He chuckled and ended with a sigh. “Please, let’s get some dinner. It’s my treat. Next time, it’s your turn.”

Next time? My turn? Suddenly, everything seemed back on track. We weren’t going on a date; we were just going to hang out.

“Okay.” I smiled into the phone. “Where should I meet you?”

And because he was no longer interested in getting in my pants, he told me where to meet him and finished with telling me to hurry the hell up because he was starving. Just like normal. I was very pleased with the man.

SIX

Ishould have felt weird, but because Cristo didn’t, eating with five men keeping watch over him, I stopped thinking about it. Two of the men, Paz and Adan, I already knew, and though I was not introduced to the others, I got nods of greeting. Normally, they didn’t acknowledge anyone, Cristo told me, but since I had saved his little brother, apparently, I was in a different league from everyone else.

True to his word, the restaurant, Corazon, was small and intimate, and the proprietress came to our table to ask him what he would like. It turned out that Cristo had given her the loan to start her business, and even more than that, they were friends.

“Tell me all about yourself,” he told me, sipping his beer from the bottle, leaning his cheek on his fist, his eyes gentle on me.

“What do you want to know?”

“Tell me how you and your policeman met.”