“Have they?” I had to admit it, I was dying to get my phone out of my purse and see if I could look his parents up. What kind of people would treat their son that way?
“I don’t think so. Somebody on my team would tell me if they did.”
“I’m sorry.” It felt like such an inadequate thing to keep saying, but I was at a loss here. Things had worked out for him, but it couldn’t have been fun to go through it.
“That’s just how it was. Not everybody’s parents are mentally healthy, and sometimes the best thing for you to do is move on with your own life. My army-appointed psychiatrist told me that and I agreed, and now here we are.”
Now here we were. With him being nominated for the most prestigious acting award in the country. It was strange to think he’d almost walked away from all of it. “Do you regret your time in the army? Because your career might have been different if you’d stayed?”
“No. Joining the army was the best thing I could have done for myself. It taught me to work hard, gave me discipline and structure, and made me understand what was really important in life. It made me the person I am now, and I’m generally happy with who I am. Even if I can be a little impatient and annoyed with others.”
My curiosity was eating away at me, and even though I shouldn’t have asked the next question, I did. “Do you think your parents watched the show tonight?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I know they are still representing child actors and have opened their own acting school. For all I know they’re putting my face on their promotional posters. But I can’t spend all my time looking back and reliving the worst parts of my life.”
I startled at that, my heart rate jumping. It was like he’d seen inside my head. Because all I did was look back and relive the most humiliating part of my life.
He put his arm across the seat behind me. “Do you ever find yourself doing that? Reliving hard times?”
“Recently? A whole lot.”
“Is that what caused . . .” He trailed off, his hand hovering next to my neck, and I could feel the warmth from his skin, even though he didn’t touch me. “And is this why you don’t date?”
“My scars? No. I usually only feel a little self-conscious about them when somebody stares and makes comments. Usually I forget because it’s just a part of me now and they’re not that bad.” It was one of the things I liked about Noah, that he didn’t stare or say rude things.
“Can I ask what happened?”
“I was in an accident just after I graduated from high school. I got rear-ended by a drunk driver and glass from the windshield got embedded in my neck. The settlement from his insurance company paid for college, and I saved the rest. Which I’m using to live on now, because somehow I thought I’d start a business and people would just call me. I had no idea how hard it would be to get it off the ground.”
“Sounds like you could have used a four-hundred-and-forty-euro tip.”
“Ha-ha,” I said, nudging him slightly with my hand.
Then he looked at me. The way that Malec had looked at Aliana after their first bout of hand-to-hand combat.
And I knew what that meant.
He wanted to kiss me.
Again I felt like I’d been lured. Only this time it was into a sense of complacency. Him sharing things, trusting me, telling me these stories about himself—it made me forget myself and my own fears. At his expression, they came rushing back.
As my heartbeat pounded out a panicky rhythm, I realized just how close we were on this seat. As if my body had been subtly making its way over toward him, like he was a giant magnet that I was helpless to resist.
So I started inching my way toward the door, wanting to put some space between us. Because he was too much and it felt a little like my throat was starting to close in on itself.
“Why are you afraid of me?” he asked.
I stopped moving. “I’m not.”
“You are. I know I’m a big guy and sometimes that can come across as intimidating, but I’m harmless.”
“No, you’re not,” I said with a laugh. I did not want to talk about this. I did not. I felt sweat break out on my hairline, and a wave of nausea made my stomach roil.
He looked really upset and pulled his arm off the seat, putting it back at his side.
I realized that I’d hurt him, and I hadn’t meant to do that. “I’m not afraid of you in the way you’re thinking. I don’t think you’re going to hurt me. That’s not it.”
He relaxed slightly while I wondered hysterically how much it would cost to steam clean the leather seat we were sitting on after I upchucked all over it.
While I concentrated on breathing in and out, he said, “You’re so hard to read. Part of my job is figuring out what makes people tick. Why they do what they do and what they mean by it. And sometimes, sometimes I feel like you’re attracted to me and you want me to touch you, and then other times you look at me like I’m a lion about to swallow you whole.”
“If anyone is looking at anyone in a weird way, I’m not the only one at fault here.” I felt tears at the edges of my eyes, which was so stupid. I was not going to cry about this. I wasn’t. “It feels like you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.”
“When I told you earlier that you were easy to think of, I was being serious. I find myself thinking about you a lot. Trying to puzzle you out.”
What in the holy freak was I supposed to do with that?
He kept talking. “In the last couple of minutes, you’ve made enough space between us for a marching band to pass through.”
That was true.
And I considered something I’d never considered before. Telling him. There was something inherently trustworthy and reliable about him. Like he was so strong that I could depend on him to help me carry my burdens. Maybe it was because he’d spent this car ride telling me all about himself, trusting me, that made me think that I could confess. I’d get through it, it would be embarrassing, but wouldn’t it be a relief to have another person know?
I couldn’t tell him every detail, but I could tell him most of them. And then he would understand. He was a logical person. He would see that we couldn’t be together and nothing would ever happen and that while we’d had a nice time together, this was as far as things could ever go.
What would his reaction be? I wanted to imagine that he would be gentle and understanding. But what if he wasn’t?
It was too scary, and I felt like I was going to pass out. I couldn’t.
So I clung to what I was good at—putting off and discouraging men. “I can’t explain it to you. I’m sorry. I can be friends and nothing more. That’s all I have to offer you.” And if he didn’t want to be friends, well, I’d be okay with that. I was okay before we met, and my life would go on just fine without him in it.
Even if that thought did feel a little sad.
He stayed silent for a moment, considering. “Then I’ll take whatever you have to give. I’d like to be your friend.”
Relief coursed through me so powerfully that I felt a little dizzy. I sagged against the seat. “Good. So we’re friends.”
“Do friends hang out in a non–dog grooming capacity?” he asked.