So I gave up but didn’t give in. I strained against his hold, rested my forehead against the door and waited for this to be over.
“Listen to me,” he urged.
I closed my eyes and stated, “You tell me, the situation was reversed, you wouldn’t think the same damned thing.”
“I was asleep.”
I opened my eyes. “Bullshit. You were into her. You’d fought over her that night. You took her back through that whole thing, even after we had our thing.”
“I see this, honey. I get you, why you’d think what you’re thinking. But you gotta listen to me.”
God!
Why couldn’t he ever let it be over?
“Say it so I can get gone and this can be done,” I hissed.
His arms gave me a gentle squeeze. “Come sit on the bed with me.”
I jerked against his hold again, clipping, “Fuck no.”
“All right, Ally, baby, calm down.”
I went still, not because he told me to, just because I needed my strength. I was holding on by a string.
When he didn’t go on, I ordered, “Just say it so I can go.”
I heard and felt him draw in a deep breath.
Then he said, “I get you’re not in the place right now that what I’m gonna ask is gonna be easy, but I need to give you what you need and some of it isn’t going to be what you wanna hear. What it is gonna be is honest.”
I closed my eyes again and clenched my teeth.
“Are you gonna stick with me and hear me out?” he asked.
I opened my eyes and snapped, “Just get it done, Zano.”
“All right, honey.”
God.
Sweet.
Someone kill me.
“I was into her,” he admitted quietly and my throat closed. “But that night, beer, bourbon and me tellin’ you I like the Bears was not about her. It was about you and me. Then you snuck away and I get that, Ally,” he said the last swiftly, his arms going tighter as he felt my body go solid. “I get why you’d do that. But I didn’t get it then. I thought it was something else, honey, and you know what I thought it was.”
“Yeah, you came over to my place in the middle of the night and made that perfectly clear,” I reminded him.
“I also apologized,” he reminded me.
Crap.
He did.
I shut my mouth.
“So yeah,” he continued gently as well as cautiously. “I had feelings for Ava and I had to work through those. But, Ally,” his arms gave me another squeeze, “she was with another guy. Deep in it with him. I had no shot. I knew that. We’d never been out on a date. I hadn’t even kissed her. I was definitely never in love with her.”
“You took her to Carmine’s,” I reminded him.
“That wasn’t a date, honey,” he told me. “And you know it. I took her to dinner and took her home to Stark. A man taking a woman to dinner and dropping her off with another man is not a date.”
Okay, I had to give him that.
“I thought we’d connected,” I found myself whispering then I found I couldn’t stop doing it. “We were naked. You were holding me. And you were thinking about her.”
“She had a lot of shit happening around her, and I was involved. So it’s not surprising that shit was swirling in the back of my head. But I wasn’t thinking about her. I wasn’t in control of my thoughts. I was unconscious.”
“You just said you were into her,” I reminded him.
“And I found another woman I was into, we had a great night, the fuckin’ best, and she blew me off. A man did that to you, you had no idea why, how would you react? What would you think?”
Oh crap.
That made sense.
And he thought that night was the best?
