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She was breaking her record on staying quiet, but her soul sucking eyes were telling me plenty.

I continued, “You should have told me your feelings,” I spoke to her, more gently now. “I would have been… more sensitive. We could have… committed and all that stuff.” For my part, I’d almost broken my own record of putting my foot in my mouth, so it’d only been a matter of time before I fumbled my words.

She was there to pounce the moment I did, of course. “Committed and all that stuff?” She looked at me like I was absolutely hopeless. “Because of my feelings?

“Of course,” I said, not at first understanding what she was getting at and trying, above all, to reassure her. “Your feelings are very important to me. I’d never hurt you.”

“You’re so twisted. I don’t want you to commit because of my feelings. For this to have been something other than what it turned out being, your feelings had to be involved too.”

“Why aren’t you hearing me? They were. They are. I care about you. I really care about you. And it’s not fair that you only ever hinted at how you felt as you were telling me it was too late. Perhaps, if you cared, you should have said something, as well.”

She wasn’t talking now, and I wasn’t finished.

“And you,” I paused and collected myself, “I’m sorry, but you need to take some responsibility too. You were just as much of a coward as I was. More.” I paused. “Coward.” I tasted the word. “You are the real coward here.”

“This… love stuff is complicated for me,” I continued. The look on her face was gratifying. She’d gone from pissed to shocked in under a second. Her eyes were wide, mouth slack, and I thought I should probably make her sit down before she fell over.

I guided her into a seat and continued, just unloading on her. I needed her to understand. More than anything, even my pride, I needed that.

“It’s not that I’ve never given my heart to anyone before,” I explained to her. “As a child, I gave it away to everyone. Anyone that I could have hoped would accept it after my mother died. By everyone I mean my father and a revolving door of girlfriends. I counted it up, and he averaged one every two months in a ten year period. He always brought them around and told me to call them mom. I did.” I swallowed hard. “When I was fourteen, one of them slipped into bed with me. That’s why I lost my virginity so young. It wasn’t all that fun. I was terrified, and it made me sick afterward, to do that to my dad.”

I took a deep breath, appreciating her ability to let me get all this out without stopping me. “You’re the first person I’ve ever told that to,” I stated quietly. “But back to my point, that’s around the time I stopped believing in love. Quit giving me that look. I’m not telling you this so you’ll feel sorry for me. I’m explaining because I had my reasons, and I wanted you to know them, to understand why it took me so long to realize my feelings on love had changed, that you had changed them.”

And then I did it, the thing I was most incapable of. I cracked my chest open wide and handed her my heart.

“I believe in love again. I believe in you.” I smiled. “Now marry me.”

She was still speechless. It wasn’t the worst response she could have had, I supposed.

“I know this was a lot to take in,” I told her gently. “That I’m a lot to take in. I’ll give you some time to think about it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I SNIFFED, GRIMACED, then sniffed again. I was working in my office, and the most awful smell was drifting my way from God knew where.

I went to Ro’s office to ask her about it. We hadn’t spoken since I’d spilled my guts to her a few hours earlier.

“Do you smell that?” I asked her, nose wrinkled.

She was sitting at her desk, but she didn’t appear to be working.

She had a peculiar look on her face, like she was embarrassed but defiant at the same time.

“Smell what?” she asked, fake innocent.

“That was a real piece of bad acting. What’s going on with you? And why are you in denial about that smell? God, what is it? And why is it smoky in here?”

I moved to investigate but she stopped me. “There was a small fire in the house, but I’ve contained it. The smoke is just lingering, but I’ve opened several doors to help clear it out. It should be better in a few hours.”

“A small fire?” I asked her, going to stand right in front of her desk. “Where? How?”

“Where? Your sex bed. How? It was a match.”

I couldn’t quite believe it. “What did you just say?”

“Your sex bed caught on fire. It’s under control now, but the bed didn’t make it. It was unsalvageable. Actually, that entire room’s a goner. Nothing survived. Oops.”

I was just staring at her like she was a crazy woman.