Present Day


    “<span>You’re not saying anything,” she whispers, the sound escaping from where she’s pressed up against my chest, with my arms wrapped around her and my shirt wet from her tears. It’s so simr to the way I cradled her in my arms that morning in Vegas that it has my heart seizing. At least this time, we’re in the quiet of our own room at the inn, and hopefully by now she knows I’d do just about anything to make sure she feels safe.


    I’m so consumed by my own guilt that I don’t know what to say. She got drunk and married him because I hurt her. Not intentionally, but it was me being oblivious to her feelings that drove her straight into his arms. All for what? Some random chick I never saw or thought of again. I was supposed to be taking care of her, and knowing that not only<span id="page_266">did I fail her in that, but I actually caused the whole situation, has a knife twisting inside my gut.


    It didn’t mean anything.I think his words—the same ones I said to her in that alley a couple of weeks back—will haunt me forever. She deserves so much more than that. She deserves to meaneverythingto someone.


    “I had no idea.”


    “About what?”


    “About why it happened. I mean, I got the sense that you had a crush on me when you were younger, but I thought you outgrew that when you were old enough to figure out...”


    “That you were the biggest fuckboy in the league?” she suggests when I don’t provide an end to that sentence. Then she lets out a smallugh and rxes against me. “Yeah, I always hoped there was more to you than your reputation. And I think I was right.”


    “I think maybe you’re the only one who ever tried to see beneath the mask.”


    “What Gabriel and Cheri did to you...Colt, if I’d have known, I don’t think I would have suggested forgiving them.”


    The fact that she is even considering what happened between me and my brother, right now, after telling me what happened to her...I don’t know if she’s just extremely empathetic, or if she’s trying to turn the conversation away from the huge bomb she just dropped.


    “You didn’t,” I remind her. “You said I didn’t have to forgive them, that I could just choose to move on. And that advice, I think, begs the question: why haven’tyoumoved on from what Brock did to you?<span id="page_267">”


    “Besides the fact that this was only six years ago, not fifteen?”


    I can tell she’s joking, trying to buy time to decide how to answer the question. “Touché.”


    “It’s not that I can’t move on because I haven’t forgiven Brock. It’s because what happened back in Vegas proved to me that I can’t trustmyself.”


    “I think what you learned, Jules, is a lesson we all learn the hard way...you make really bad decisions when you’re drunk.”


    “No. I learned that when I let go of control, I fuck up my life. Alcohol is one way of losing control, but there are others.”


    “Like what?” I ask, wondering how deep her control issues go.


    “I don’t know.” I can feel her shrug her shoulder where it rests against my bicep. “I never test my limits. Being vulnerable in any way...it’s a no from me.”


    “Jules, that’s...” I stop myself before I sayridiculous. How can she possibly grow, or be a fully functioning human being, if she keeps herself so closed off? “... limiting your life experiences, don’t you think?”


    She shrugs again.


    “What are the things you’d want to do if you weren’t afraid of losing control?”


    “You’re not my shrink, Colt.”


    I can already feel her wallsing back up. “No, I’m not. But unlike your therapist, I’m here right now. And you need to talk this out.”


    The hum of her disapproval rattles around in her throat, but her fingers trace the tattoos on my right biceps<span id="page_268">.


    “Let’s y a little game,” I suggest. “Here’s the sentence frame:if I wasn’t afraid of ... nk, I would or wouldn’t ... nk. I’ll go first.”


    “Okay.” Her agreement is tentative, like she might change her mind if I don’t offer something worthy.


    “If I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt again, I would drop my one night only rule. Your turn.”


    She pauses, sighing as if she’s not sure where to start. “If I wasn’t afraid of the making terrible decisions, I would try more than two drinks in a night just to see what it’s like.”


    “If you ever want to get drunk, Jules, I’ll happily stay sober and make sure you’re safe. You can try drinking again, and I won’t let you do anything you’ll regret.”


    She shifts on the bed, curling into me like she’s burrowing into nkets. She’s trying to get cozy with me, and I don’t have the typical urge to get up, move away, invite her to leave. No, I want Jules curled up with me for as long as she wants to be here.


    “Maybe someday,” she says finally. “Your turn.”


    “If I wasn’t afraid of bing irrelevant, I wouldn’t try so hard to live up to my reputation.”


    “Hmmmm.” That sound rattles against me again, and I’m about to remind her that it’s her turn now when she says, “If I wasn’t afraid of losing control, I would date.”


    “You’re afraid of losing control on a date?”


    “No questions, Colt,” she says. “Just finish the sentence frame. Your turn.”


    My chest shakes withughter because I’m finally figuring her out. Knowing sheshes out when she’s scared—especially of being vulnerable—makes it so much easier to understand her<span id="page_269">.


    “If I wasn’t afraid of hurting someone else the way I was hurt,” I say, releasing a heavy breath, “I would be open to a rtionship.”


    “You think you’d hurt someone else the same way you were hurt?”


    Of course not.After what Gabriel did to me, there’s no way I’d ever cheat. But there are a lot of other ways to hurt someone just as much.


    “No questions, Jules. Just finish the damn sentence,” I say, mimicking her.


    “Fine,” she huffs like she’s irritated that I used her strategy on her. “If I wasn’t afraid of losing control, I wouldn’t still be a virgin.”


    I freeze. I think I stop breathing and my blood stops flowing, because everything inside of mees to a standstill. I couldn’t have heard her correctly. And then my body jolts itself back alive in a sh of heat that flows across my skin painfully.


    “What now?” I croak out the words,


    “No questions ...” she says, but I tighten my grip on her with my left arm and use my right hand to tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me.


    “Jules, you can’t lead with a sentence like that and not offer an exnation.”


    “I don’t owe you an exnation, Colt.”


    “You’re right. But ...” But what? I don’t deserve to know this about her, or know anything else that she doesn’t want to tell me. “...maybe talking about it would help?”


    “I’ve talked about it ad nauseam with my therapist and my sister.”


    “And has that helped?<span id="page_270">”


    “I’m still a virgin, aren’t I?” The question is sassy and sardonic, but it seems to hide real pain—or real fears, at the very least.


    “Can I ask you a question that’s probably going to piss you off?” In response, she rolls her eyes as if to say,Everything you do pisses me off.But I think I’m learning that this is just part of her defensive strategy. “How do you know for sure? I mean, you were so drunk you don’t remember getting married. Are youpositivethat douchebag didn’t take advantage of you?”


    She burrows her cheek into my chest. “Look at you getting all possessive,” she teases, trying to redirect the conversation so she doesn’t have to answer the question. I wait her out and finally, she says, “I was having my period. I still had my tampon in that morning.”


    “God, Jules,” I say as I stroke her cheek. “I’m so fucking sorry.”


    “It’s not your fault.”


    “Yeah, it really is. I always felt guilty because, even though I made sure you got back to your room safely, it didn’t stop everything that happened afterward. Now I know that ittrulyis my fault.”


    “I was in charge of my own emotions and my own decision-making that night, Colt. I’m the one who’s responsible. Just like I’m the one who has to decide when I can trust someone enough to move past what happened.”


    “What’s preventing you from taking thatst step?”


    Why am I asking her these questions? Why am I prying into something that isn’t my business? Is it because she’s quickly be one of the few people I trust enough to share<span id="page_271">my secrets? Or is it because I can’t stop thinking about her? Can’t stop imagining us together? Have pictured myself having sex with her almost as often as I’ve taken a breathtely? Jerked off to images of us together? Want her so bad that I’m having a fucking crisis of conscience over her?


    “You mean, besides theck of quality men in this world?” she says.


    “Yeah.”


    She sighs, and I think she’s done with the conversation. But then she says, “I think sex is one of those things where I would have to trust another person implicitly in order to be able to...do it. And I’ve never met a guy I can trust like that.”


    I have so many thoughts about that—about the fact that sex doesn’t have to be an emotional experience, how it can just be about blowing off steam and feeling good. But I guess I don’t have the control issues or the fear that Jules does, so it’s easy for me to disassociate sex from emotions.


    “You’ve never met a single guy you trust enough to have sex with?”


    She lets out a little snort ofughter. “The circle of guys I trust, and the circle of guys who want to sleep with me...they just never seem to ovep.”


    Do you trust me?The question is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t dare ask it.


    Her family is my family, and they don’t want me with her. Jameson is my best friend, so he told me what everybody else was thinking: I’m not good enough for Jules. And they’re right. I’ll hurt her in the end, or she’ll hurt me. Either way, I can’t risk damaging my rtionship with the Flynns. Even if,<span id="page_272">for a brief moment, every once in a while, in quiet times like this when it’s just the two of us, I go stupid and think there’s a chance Jules and I could actually work out.