“Wes, I’m not the heartless, woman devouring monster you think I am. I haven’t been with a woman in months. And the last time I was, I dated her for a couple of months. The girl before her too.”
“But never longer than that.”
“They haven’t been the right girl.”
Because something tells me I’m looking at her.
“All I’m saying is your track record is shit. Especially with Aria’s friends and I don’t want to see Rina get hurt.”
“What track record? You and Aria are all about this shit. I slept with two of Aria’s high school friends, Wes. They pursued me. I told them flat out it was not going to go anywhere. They agreed. They were all for it just being fun. Then it happened and they freaked when it ended exactly as I said it would. How is that my fault?”
“And the other girls?”
I sigh. “Again, they came onto me. Not the other way around, and I didn’t reciprocate after the first two went bad.”
“Fair point. I don’t remember all the details. I just know Aria lost her best friends and spent the last two years of high school like a social pariah because girls were still pissed about you.”
“Then they shouldn’t have said yes to something they knew they couldn’t handle,” I growl. “Besides, asshole, that was fucking high school.”
“Okay. But you’re not staying, Breck. Think of that when you think about Rina. To say Aria’s sensitive about you and her friends is an understatement.”
“Fine. Whatever.” I blow him off. “We still on for the B’s game this week? I need the escape from my dickhead new boss.”
“Yes. I still can’t believe you bought season tickets.”
“Hockey is real, dude. And Bruins hockey is life. What the hell good is having all this money if I can’t spend it on extravagant shit.” I turn to meet his eyes. “You know Drew is coming too, right?”
“Yeah, I know Drew is coming and that’s fine. He’s a good guy and I like being friendly with him, since I don’t think he exactly considers us friends. Besides, I have something I need to tell him anyway and work isn’t the place for it.”
Wes slaps my shoulder, leaving it at that and we both walk over to where the ladies are standing by the front door.
“Welcome to the party, Angel,” I say by way of a greeting. Aria’s head flies left, her eyes wide with the nickname, but screw it. “I hope you’re handy with a brush. We’ve got a lot of wall space to cover.”
“Angel?” Aria pipes up, unwilling to let it go.
Rina snickers. “That’s what your brother calls me. I get the impression learning women’s names is a bit of a stretch for him.”
Ouch. That makes two zings my way in less than a couple of minutes.
The irony is, they don’t even know. They’re judging me now based on when I was an eighteen-year-old kid. I haven’t been with a woman in three months. That wasn’t a lie I told Wes. Yes, I know, I don’t date women for long. Yes, some of the women have grown attached when they should have known better—because I fucking told them, and they agreed.
But I’m not cruel. Never. I’m not heartless. Ever.
All my life I’ve felt like the outsider who stared into the ball from the street because he never got invited. Sure, I was popular. Yes, I had friends. But I never felt like many people knew the real me and two of the people who are supposed to are in this room and the things that have flown out of their mouths today prove that maybe they don’t know me as well as I thought they did.
All they see me as is the player.
“Believe me, Rina Fritz, I have no problems learning women’s names,” I bite, my tone a bit harsher than I intend. But I think I’ve officially hit the end of my chill with this. “Now that we’re all done slinging shit my way, can we get back to my walls? I’d like to be finished today.”
And like a petulant child, I turn on my heels and go back to my brush.
But fuck all of this.
I’m so goddamn tired of everyone thinking I’m the asshole.
Honestly, if I wasn’t nursing such a hit to my pride and ego, maybe I’d be reacting differently. Laughing it off instead of bristling. But I’m thirty-two years old and instead of capturing my life by the horns and riding that shit like a pro, I feel like I’m chasing after it and playing catch-up.
Crappy job. Old city. My past transgressions never far behind me.
And now, the same woman who tore a path straight through me, if only for one night, is here, in my goddamn home, and I can’t touch her. Not just that, I’m warned off.
“I’m sorry,” Rina’s soft voice beside me whispers, the wet sound of the roller squishing up and down my walls as she paints a couple of feet away. I glance over my shoulder, but Aria and Wes are on the other side of the room. I turn back and start painting again, ignoring her because I’m still angry. Still resentful. Still pathetically petulant. “I shouldn’t have said that about you. It was unfair.”
I close my eyes for a second, blowing out a breath and releasing some of the tension that’s sitting on me like an albatross. “It’s fine.”
“No, Brecken. It’s not fine. I didn’t mean what I said. Whether Angel is my name or not, you remembered who I was even three years later. And the no-names thing that night was on me. You had told me you wanted more than that night and I said no all the way before running out on you.”
“You do that a lot. Run out on me.”
“Yes, but I know you know why, so you can’t fault me on that. You didn’t tell me Aria was coming over today.”
I laugh before I can stop it. “That’s because I completely forgot until she was knocking on my door at ten to eight. I might have also had a tiny panic attack thinking you were still asleep on my couch. You can imagine my relief.” I growl that last part, dripping all the sarcasm I can muster into it.
“I already apologized. And clearly it was the right call. Did you have to start in with the Angel stuff? You’re asking for trouble.”
“I want trouble with you.” She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell she doesn’t like that. Her silence hangs around us, poking holes in me. “Do you really hate it when I call you Angel?”
She’s still silent, but when I glance over at her, she’s smiling, trying like hell to hide it as she bites into her bottom lip.
Her sparkling green eyes meet mine and she slowly shakes her head. “No. But I want to.”
I laugh a little at that. “I’m not really such a bad guy.” I don’t know why I feel the need to defend myself to her. Why I want her to think only good things about me instead of all the bad I know she already does.
“I don’t think you’re a bad guy, Brecken. That’s part of the problem.”
“Meaning what?”
“Nothing. Just forget it. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“What if I don’t want to forget it? What if I want you to tell me all the ways I’m not such a bad guy? All the ways you secretly like me.”
She laughs, the sound light and airy, forcing a smile to burst across my lips. Rina doesn’t laugh a lot—she’s kind of serious actually—but when she does laugh, it’s like angels singing. Pun intended. It’s a magnificent sound, and my smile feels triumphant. Like by getting this woman to laugh, I conquered some tremendous feat few others have.