“I still feel sick about what happened that night, what I saw, what you must have lived with for so long,” she continued. “I know how lucky I am that things didn’t end differently. I’ve wasted a lot of time over the past several years thinking about the what-ifs. What if I’d gotten there too late? What if he hurt my dad? What if he’d gotten away with it? But I have never once regretted the way things worked out. He went to jail, and you got out. Justice was served.”
I turned to face her even though I didn’t want to look at her. “There’s no such thing as justice,” I spat.
“That sounds like a conversation neither one of us has time for.”
“You have someone actively threatening you. Not only did you not think to mention it to me, you’re also not taking it seriously. It’s fucking selfish again.”
She gasped and the fight in her eyes flared to life. “Selfish? You think me putting your father in jail so everyone would know who the real monster was is selfish?”
“You deciding you know what’s best for everyone is selfish. You refusing to take the bare minimum of safety precautions once again is selfish. You putting yourself in danger is selfish.”
She took a step toward me and laid her palms on my chest. “You’re really starting to piss me off, and I don’t like to be pissed off on Thursdays because it’s Lunch Swap Thursday, and I like Lunch Swap Thursdays. So I’m going to say this. I’m sorry for my part in all of it. I’m sorry for not doing what you needed me to do or not being what you needed me to be. I’m sorry for making it seem like I’m not taking these threats seriously, because I am. I’m freaking the fuck out that someone decided to throw a pile of dead rats on my front porch! Now can we talk about whatever this is like adults, or are you going to double down on shoving your head up your ass?”
She was yelling by the end of her tirade. Her chin jutted out as she glared up at me. I wanted to kiss her. To lock her in a bedroom and keep her safe. I wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled and she saw reason. That she never should have gotten involved. That once again, being close to me had brought her up against danger.
But this time, I could do something about it.
“I need to get back to the city, and you need to go home,” I announced. “This little fuck fest is over.”
“Doubling down, I see,” she quipped. “Fine.”
She gripped the hem of the T-shirt she wore and dragged it over her head. Sloane Walton was naked in my kitchen. I wasn’t sure how many fantasies of mine had started that way, but it was at least a thousand.
“Keep the shirt,” I insisted.
“I’d rather walk home naked,” she snapped.
We’d spent too much time doing this. Fighting then finding our way back to each other only to blow up again. We were like magnets drawn together in one moment before we were reversed, repelling each other the next. But this time, it needed to be permanent. This time, I needed to blow it up forever.
I followed her to the coat rack. She snatched her parka off the hook and slid her arms into the sleeves in quick, jerky movements.
“Poor broody boy with his big cock and all that emotional baggage.”
She hopped on one foot and yanked a snow boot over the other.
“You can at least get dressed,” I said dryly.
“Thanks, but I’d rather burn it all than look at it again and think of you.”
She was playing with fire. I was angry and she was pushing buttons like a toddler in an elevator. She was either oblivious to my anger or brashly confident in her nonexistent abilities to protect herself.
“I spent enough of my life with a woman who had no sense of self-preservation. I’m not doing it again. Not when I have a choice in the matter this time.”
She stopped midhop and glared up at me. Fury snapped off her like sparks from a bonfire.
“Don’t you ever compare me to your mother. And while you’re at it, have fun spending the rest of your life alone because you’re too fucking stubborn to learn to do better.”
“As long as I don’t have to deal with you on a daily basis, I look forward to it. I pity your future husband.”
Sloane’s laugh was sharp and humorless. “I wouldn’t waste any time thinking about me or my future husband if I were you. Because I’m going to forget you ever existed.”
“Good luck with that.”
But she didn’t hear me because she’d already slammed the front door behind her.
I whipped it open and stepped outside. “A security company will be coming by this afternoon to install cameras at your place,” I called as she stormed toward her house.