His face grew grave. “I understand.”
She gestured to a low stone bench, judging them far enough away from the restaurant and hotel that they wouldn’t be disturbed.
He sat at one end of the bench. She took the other end, though it was a tight squeeze. Then again, he’d make anything a tight squeeze.
His body angled toward her. “How’d you know where to find me?”
“My assistant has some creepy powers.”
Samson’s smile was small. “Apparently.”
She bit her lip, aware the clock was ticking. His hair was rumpled. She had a brief, untimely vision of it when it had been long, long enough to slip over his shoulders and brush her nipples and she looked away, focusing on a spot right over his shoulder.
Get this over with.
“Rhiannon—”
“I’m here for closure.”
“Closure.”
“Yeah. My best friend says I need it.”
“Do you think you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re mad at me. I treated you really badly, and I am so sorry I hurt you.”
She drew herself up, feathers ruffling. Bad enough, showing Katrina her vulnerabilities.
Don’t get defensive. Don’t run away, or you’ll feel worse, as you discovered. This is what you’re here for. The voice in her head sounded oddly like Katrina’s, and it did calm her, but she still had to push back. “We knew it was going to be a temporary affair. It would have ended that second night anyway.”
“Not like it did.” Samson looked down at his hands. “The thing I said onstage, about the family emergency? That wasn’t a hypothetical.”
She wanted to cross her arms over her chest, but she knew what that would convey. She didn’t interrupt him. Katrina may have connected the dots via Google, but that was a search engine, and she didn’t trust that hope wasn’t coloring their interpretation of what had happened.
There wasn’t a more optimistic creature in the world than a person who wanted to believe someone hadn’t treated them like shit. Let him corroborate what they’d cobbled together.
“My uncle had degenerative neurological diseases—Alzheimer’s, ALS. I was his caretaker. He was always on me to get out, take a night off, have some fun, and that’s not always easy to do in a small town. I’d grown up around most of the locals, and the tourists weren’t usually single people my age. I’d never been on an app before, but it seemed like the easiest way to see who was out there. Spending those hours with you was the first time I’d done something purely for myself in I don’t know how long.” His gaze on her was steady and sincere. “I swear, I did mean to see you again. But when I got home, Uncle Joe was having trouble breathing. I knew that it was inevitable, but his decline was rapid, and his death a few days later hit me hard.”
Samson’s recitation was matter-of-fact, but the underlying anguish and quiet sadness couldn’t be faked. She didn’t want to think anyone was cruel enough to try to fake it.
There are men who would fake it, her subconscious whispered. Don’t trust this.
There was corroboration, though.
He could have let you know that day so you wouldn’t have sat there waiting for him like an idiot.
Except she’d never given him her number. She rarely gave her number out to anyone, especially a one-night stand. A number was personal, and these sexual encounters were never personal.
As if he were reading her mind, he continued. “I could have—I should have—sent you a message through the app before we were supposed to meet. I didn’t, and I apologize for that. I completely forgot until days later. By then you’d already unmatched me, and I didn’t have a number to contact you otherwise.” He didn’t say it as accusation, but as fact. He shrugged. “I am sorry. I didn’t intend—” He broke off. “I know you don’t like hearing that, that you have no reason to give me the benefit of the doubt, but I truly didn’t consciously stand you up.”
She tried to marshal her chaotic thoughts. She hated feeling emotions. All these things inside her, anger, regret, sadness, relief, hope.
Stuff ’em down forever.
“I did try to find you afterward.” His lips quirked, making her heart thud. “I went to the house you’d rented, talked to the owners. Googled you. Unfortunately, it’s hard enough to find a Claire when her name is Claire. Much harder when her name is actually Rhiannon.”
She finally spoke. “My middle name is Claire.”
One snippet of personal information. It didn’t mean anything.
He smiled, slowly, as if it did mean something. “It’s a pretty name. I’m sorry, Rhiannon Claire Hunter. Truly.”
She bit her lip. “I understand being out of it because a loved one dies. You had no obligation toward me, we’d only slept together once.” She thought he was about to speak, so she lifted her hand. “That’s the truth of what happened.” Even if they had been silly about it, making plans for a second date. “So, um. Maybe you’re not evil. Thanks for explaining. I am sorry to hear about your uncle. I don’t follow sports, so I don’t know anything about him, but it sounds like you loved him an awful lot.”
His eyes flickered. “He was like a second father to me. I still can’t believe he’s gone.”
Something tightly knotted within her unraveled and she frowned, confused at the feeling. What . . . what was that? Her anger at him dampening? Her anger at herself, for feeling fooled, unknotting? Was this what . . . closure felt like? This light buoyancy?
She didn’t know. The last time she’d gotten burned by a man, it had been on a much more enormous scale than this, and she’d walked away in too many pieces to even risk getting near him again for anything as silly as closure. “I don’t want to get together with you again,” she added, for both their sakes. “But I . . . I believe that you had something tragic and unexpected happen to you, and it may have affected your state of mind and prevented you from seeing me again.”
He nodded slowly. “Thank you for hearing me out.”
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the birds chirping in the spring air. Rhiannon let the curve of her back touch the bench, though she didn’t relax into it. Now what? What did one do when someone behaved badly and gave you a reasonable explanation for what motivated their bad behavior and apologized?
It was so much easier to write people off. Much harder to navigate the gray areas of interpersonal relationships.
A gentle brush came against her pinkie. She looked down to find his hand not far from hers. The giant Super Bowl ring decorating his finger winked up at her. “I didn’t know you were a famous football player.”
“I didn’t know you were a famous entrepreneur.” His big shoulders moved. “You could have found information about me, if you wanted to. You own the app. You have my data.”
“I have everyone’s data.”
He eyed her. “How much data?”
She almost patted his hand but thought better of it. “Best you not know.” Best no one knew. She wasn’t evil. That data was safe in her hands. Ignorance was bliss. “And yeah, I could have easily found you, but I thought you were a dick.” Even then, she’d wanted to track him down, but had resisted.