“Humiliating?” I was getting angry. “You were beaten by a piece-of-shit thief!”
“I really don’t want to discuss this right now. Can we change the subject?”
Now, I felt bad. This wasn’t a great way to spend our date.
“Of course,” I replied. “Tell me about your roommate. Rex? What’s he like?”
She shrugged, “Rex is Rex.”
“How long have you known him?” I asked.
The thing was, deep down, I didn’t like the fact that she lived with a man. It made me jealous, and I wanted to know as much as I could about him.
Looking through the menu again, she replied, “I met him when we moved to England, and we were best friends. Then, we thought we had…other feelings…for each other. We were together from when we were fourteen until sixteen. We were each other’s firsts—”
“You live with a man you’ve had sex with?” I wasn’t taking that information well.
“I do. But it’s not like that. The older we got, the more we both realized that, as much as we loved each other, something was missing.”
“And what was that?” My insides were seething, like they had been when I caught her hugging Ronen.
“I didn’t have a cock. He was more torn up over it than I was though. He swears, I was the only woman he’d ever been in love with, but I don’t think—”
“You live with a man whom you’ve had sex with, who says you’re the only woman he’s ever loved—”
“Yes. Hush now. It’s not like that. Rex loves me as I love him. We’re best friends, and he only has sex with men now.”
“He’s gay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you in love with him?” I demanded, sounding as furious as I felt.
“No. I just love him. I always will. You love Trey, don’t you?”
“I’ve never had sex with him!”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry I mentioned it.”
Now, I felt like an ass. She had been giving me insight into her life, finding a connection we shared with our homosexual best friends, and I had reacted poorly.
Reaching across the table, I took her hand in mine and brought it to my lips. “No, I’m sorry. That wasn’t cool of me. I overreacted.”
She looked surprised. “No worries.”
“I…I’m finding myself to be very jealous where you’re concerned. I don’t know why that bothered me. Normally, I wouldn’t care…” I couldn’t finish because it was so strange, feeling this way about anything.
She didn’t ask me to elaborate. I didn’t think I could have if she had.
Our server came over, and we placed our order.
Afterward, Xanthe leaned back against the booth and clasped her hands before her on the tabletop. For a few moments, she stared at them but then raised her eyes to mine. “Oliver…” she said.
Warmth spread through me.
“I’d love to have a relationship with you, but there are things you should know about me first…things that might make you change your mind.”
My heart tripped. “Like what?”
“Like the fact that I’ve seen a therapist since I was twelve. You’ve made some comments about people having sick minds and the like. What you’ve said about Elaine, wondering about the sanity of the mind that came up with those stories—the ‘torture, rape, and dismemberment’—it’s my mind. Those are my stories. I think up and imagine the nightmares people read about. I love horror movies, blood, guts, and gore.”
That’s it? “So…what are you saying?”
“I’m saying, you should know that you want to be in a relationship with someone whom you’ve considered to be a mental case—which I can assure you, I’m not. I’ve intensely studied psychology, my own mind being the reason behind why the subject fascinates me. My therapist assures me of the same thing. I’m not a head case. And I’m not the only one who thinks like I do. Anne Rice, Stephen King—”
“Xanthe, I’ve never thought you were mental. If anything, I find your way of thinking enlightening.”
“You’ve made me feel self-conscious with some of your offhanded comments,” she admitted, making me feel like a prick all over again. “When I lost my mom and grandma, I saw some things that made it possible for me to really explore horror. My imaginings became very dark and what many people considered disturbed. I was fascinated with death and destruction, even the afterlife. And it shows in my writing; it’s what I feel makes my stories convincing.”
My chest ached as I realized that I had made her feel like she had to defend herself against me. “Xanthe…I’m so sorry. I didn’t think. I guess I never stopped to think about how it would make you feel. I promise, I don’t think you’re sick. You’re superbly different. These last few days I’ve spent with you have been some of the most exciting in my entire life.”
“And here I thought you lived the life of a playboy.” She snorted with laughter. “If you think this is exciting—”
Taking her hands in mine, a smile on my face, I told her, “It’s you who excites me, woman. I like the person I am when I’m with you.”
“I was afraid…” she said softly.
“Afraid of what?”
“That you’d be angry because I hadn’t been up front about it. I didn’t say anything before because…I really thought you’d be upset.”
“Please, Xanthe. Just because I read more mystery than paranormal—”
“Hey!” she huffed. “Don’t forget I write some pretty awesome sex, too!”
I burst out laughing. “I won’t.” Then, the shower scene from chapter twenty-three of Haunted Bonds bloomed bright in my mind’s eye. If her sex scenes are anything like that, I’ve hit the damn jackpot with this woman.
“And it doesn’t bother you that I still speak with a therapist?” she asked, uncharacteristically timid for the Xanthe I’d come to know.
“No. Why would it?”
“That’s just what I’m trying to figure out. I…” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it, but I guess I should. After the attack, I closed myself off. I started with therapy sessions again. My doctor is in Oxford. Dr. McKenna is awesome. We do sessions over the phone. But George Kastor really did a number on me. I didn’t want to meet new people, my readers, go to signings—none of it.
“When I had come home that night and he had been there, I was afraid, yes, but…I was furious. He was delusional. He’d made up this entire life with me in his head. That was the scariest thing to me—that his mind was so far gone that he actually believed I was his girlfriend. He said the stories he’d had published of mine were just so wonderful because they were about us, about what we had done together, and he’d just wanted the world to know.
“It’s a rare thing for me to be terrified, and right then, I’d never been so scared for my own safety in my life. When I’d denied there was something between us and called him out on his foul shit”—she swallowed thickly—“things got ugly real fast.”