His expression shifted and at the shift, I braced.

“You’re makin’ a bigger deal of this than it is, honey,” he said softly but didn’t move toward me. “After what happened tonight, I just need some time to get my head together.”

“What happened tonight?” I asked.

Chace didn’t answer.

When it was important, Chace never really answered.

“Right,” I muttered, my heart squeezing and it didn’t feel good at all. I took a sip of wine and didn’t get what women were always talking about in regards to drinking wine during heartbreak. It didn’t make me feel even a little bit better.

Maybe I needed more of it.

Like, a case.

Chace didn’t move.

“You aren’t leaving,” I prompted, pleased with myself that my voice didn’t crack because tears were rushing up my throat.

“I’ll call you Tuesday,” he whispered.

I lifted my wineglass his way and invited, “You do that.”

He didn’t move.

I took another sip of wine.

When I lowered my glass, reading me yet again, he noted, “You’re not gonna answer.”

“Nope,” I replied, sounding shockingly cavalier considering my insides were bleeding.

“Faye –” he started, taking a step toward me.

I shook my head and lifted a hand his way. “Unh-unh, no. Door’s the other way, Chace.”

He rocked to a halt, his chin jerked down and to the side in a motion that made it look like he’d been struck then he righted his head and reminded me, “You told me you’d never show me the door.”

“I changed my mind,” I fired back.

He studied me a moment while I hoped to all frak I gave nothing away then remarked, “You know my family’s fucked up.”

“No. I know your mother is mentally ill and I know this is not in her control, it isn’t her choice. It’s an illness like any other illness and it’s nothing to get tense or be embarrassed about. If she had diabetes, cancer, it wouldn’t reflect on her in any way. But because she is how she is, you are how you are, thinking I’ll judge her or maybe both of you because of something out of either of your control. That’s not nice and I don’t like it.”

“Faye –”

I interrupted him. “And I don’t know about your father. You’ve told me some but not all, definitely not what would drive you to behave the way you did tonight. For your mother’s sake, it seems a not difficult thing to do, putting up with him for fifteen minutes to shield her from that emotion. He seemed capable of doing that for her. But obviously, whatever it is runs deeper. And obviously, you don’t intend to share it with me.”

“It is deeper,” he shared, just not much because he didn’t go on.

“No kidding?” I asked, hiding my despair behind sarcasm.

“Give me time,” he urged quietly.

“How much do you need, Chace? A year? Ten? Twenty?” I shot back, now hiding behind anger.

“It isn’t pleasant,” he whispered.

“So is a lot of stuff in life,” I replied. “Clue in, I am not your mother. Yes, I read. And yes, I do it a lot. And yes, I did it before you because life can suck and living in a fantasy world is a lot more fun than living in the real world sometimes. This was not a weak choice, it was an informed one. The cops in my town were dirty, my father was getting pulled over all the time because he didn’t like it and didn’t mind saying it but didn’t have the power to stop it. Innocent men like Ty Walker were being extradited states away to stand trial for murders they didn’t commit. Women who weren’t all that nice but still, that doesn’t matter, were being murdered. My friends got cheated on by their boyfriends or dumped after they slept with them or lied to or broken up with for what seemed no reason at all. You know I can go on. There’s not one thing wrong with saying, ‘To hell with that garbage,’ and immersing myself in worlds where happy ever afters are guaranteed or things are so fantastical, you know they’re not real, even the bad stuff. But that doesn’t mean I’m weak or fragile. It doesn’t mean I’m incapable of living my life. Everyone finds things they enjoy so they can escape. I’m not a freak. Even you do it with your sports. Part of me likes that you want to protect me from unpleasantness but part of me feels like it’s a slap in the face that you think I can’t cope when I can.”

He took another step toward me saying, “It’s worse than you could expect.”

“Okay,” I returned instantly. “Maybe it is. But you not sharing tells me you don’t trust me to be able to handle it. Which means you don’t trust me to hold up my side of the relationship. Which means we don’t actually have a relationship. I don’t have to have had one to know that both people in a relationship have responsibilities for keeping it strong and making it thrive and part of that is taking each other’s backs. You have mine but refuse to allow me to take yours. I’ve been cool. I’ve been patient. I’ve given you time. You want more, take it but don’t drag me with you as you struggle with this crap, Chace. Because the longer we’re together the more you should get to know me, come to the understanding I can handle it and trust me. You aren’t even close to that. That tells me you won’t be. So you want to keep your dark secrets, let them eat at you, fine. But don’t make me watch it happen.”

“So what you’re sayin’ is, hours ago, you told me you love me and now, I want a couple of days to get my head straight, you’re breakin’ up with me,” he said low, a warning. A warning I no longer gave a frak about.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Just like that?” he asked.

“No, it’s never happened to me before but I doubt after I fell head over heels in love with a wonderful man who kept important things from me, I’ll get over it just like that. I’ll drink with my girls and cry and wonder if I made the right decision. Then another man will come along, he won’t be as wonderful as my first love, but I suppose I’ll eventually get over it and move on.”

This was the way, way, way wrong thing to say and I knew it when the air went from smothering to stifling and Chace moved.

I tried to keep my cool as I watched him shrug off his coat and throw it over the footboard of my bed and I did this by sharing, “It’s cold, Chace, and the door’s the other way.”

His eyes sliced to me and he clipped, “Stop that shit.”

“What shit?” I asked

“The cold, remote Faye. It’s shit,” he answered.

“You’re right. It is. It’s a façade to hide the fact my heart is breaking. But, whatever. That isn’t your problem anymore. Now, can I point out, you told me you need space but you’re still fraking here?”

“Another man is not gonna come along,” he informed me and I stared.

Then I asked, “What?”

“You are not movin’ onto another guy,” he crossed his arms on his chest and finished, “Ever.”

“That choice is not yours.”

“Yeah it is,” he returned swiftly. “You can’t give away what’s mine.”

“You aren’t getting this, Chace, but just now, I took it back.”

“Can’t take back what’s mine either.

God! He wanted to go, why wouldn’t he just go?

I had to shut this down.

“I thought you were tired,” I reminded him.

“Thought of movin’ on,” he stated and I was back to staring.

Then I thought I got it, it hurt but whatever. I had wine and, tomorrow, I’d call the girls and then, in about fifty years, I’d get better so I invited, “There’s the door. Move on.”

“Was this close to it,” he continued.

“Chace –”

“Then you came back into town.”

I felt my head jerk in surprised confusion.

Chace kept speaking.

“Decided with one look at you, I’d put up with it, all the shit that was gettin’ worse at work ‘cause my end game would be you.”

Was he saying what I thought he was saying?

“The town’s sweet, cute, quiet, pretty librarian in my bed, my ring on her finger, enjoyin’ it as I taught her how to enjoy it, plantin’ my babies in her, building a family.”

Holy fraking frak!

He was saying what I thought he was saying!

No, he was saying more.

I stopped breathing.

He continued talking.

“One look, at the grocery store, you in the aisle, your nose in a book. Stared at you, so fuckin’ cute, but I had no clue how you could shop and keep your nose in a book. But there you were, doin’ it. You looked up, saw someone you knew, smiled at them and I knew eatin’ all that shit at work would be worth it when I was ready to make my play. That cute in my bed. That hair. Those eyes. That smile. Definitely worth it. So I ate it, bidin’ my time, gettin’ the wild out of me so all I’d give you was sweet. You’d move to Gnaw Bone, Chantelle, I knew you would so I could kiss that bullshit good-bye, get myself out of it without takin’ you away from the folks you loved when I claimed you.”

Holy frickity fraking frak, frak, frak!

I forced air in my lungs.

Chace moved toward me and kept talking.

“Waited too long.”

I watched him come to me, my heart beginning to beat harder and my feet no longer not moving because I was trying to be cool but because I was frozen solid with shock. He came to a halt one foot from me so I tipped my head back to look at him.

He lifted a hand, pulled the wineglass from mine and set it on the counter with an alarming-sounding clink.

I looked at the glass in a vague effort to ascertain that it wasn’t broken then I tilted my head back to look back at him, mouth open but I didn’t say a word.

He did.

“He touched you.”