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“Funny, I saw you the night you left me,” she said, without really wanting to. It just slipped out. “Chatting it up with some girl, with booze in front of you. It was like I stepped through a time portal and nothing had even happened between us. Like those few days we shared were nothing.”
He rubbed his jaw and shook his head. “She sat next to me, not the other way around. And I didn’t go home with her, or kiss her, or fuck her. Or even flirt with her.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t need to,” he answered, crossing his arms. “Don’t worry, I won’t count that as your question.”
She leaned on the wall. “Oh, the game started?”
“Didn’t it start the second you let me in?” he asked, his voice low.
“No, but it did now.” She walked across the room to the couch and perched on the edge of it. “That was a bad first question, but to each his own, I guess.”
He grimaced. “Your turn.”
“Why are you here?”
He took a few steps closer. “I miss you, and I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. If I had it to do over again I would show you that you can trust me, and I won’t run. If you give me another chance, I’ll never run again. I promise.”
She swallowed hard and let out a laugh. She couldn’t help it. “Funny, you already broke one promise to me just a few days ago. But I’m supposed to think they mean something to you now?”
“They do. You do.” He stepped closer. “It does.”
She averted her face. He was looking at her as if he couldn’t live without her, and yet he’d been fine with telling her he was done with her the second she disappointed him. She wasn’t sure what to believe. His words or his actions. “Your turn.”
“What will it take to get you to forgive me?”
She bit down on her tongue and shook her head. “There’s nothing to forgive. You said you were done with me, so I’m letting you be. You said it’s over, so it is. I told you if you walked away, not to come back. And you still did it.”
“I don’t want it to be over.”
“The friendship?” she asked, tapping her fingers on her knees. “Or the sex?”
“Both. All of it. What we were only just discovering.” He took another step. Every time he answered her, he moved closer. She had three more questions before he would be right there, at her side, within touching distance. “I want it all. All of you. All of me. All of us. The good. The bad. The happiness. The tears. Everything.”
When he said things like that…
It made it a lot harder to remember why she shouldn’t trust him again.
And it was more difficult to remember the pain he caused when he walked away, and metaphorically brushed her off his hands. It made her aching heart want to trust him again, despite all that. But he needed to be all in. To be as head over heels about her as she was about him.
And that was one thing he hadn’t mentioned yet.
Love.
She’d told him she loved him. He’d walked away. And that was that. “Then you should have let me explain.”
“I know,” he said, his voice low. “Let me tell you about what happened over there. When I lost my men.”
She stiffened. “Why now?”
“It plays hand in hand with my reaction.” He took a deep breath, locking eyes with her. “The guys I lost? It was all because of a lie. My superior lied to me, and I knew it, and I didn’t question him. I let it slide. And men died.”
Swallowing, she stepped closer. “Tell me everything.”
“I will. This time, I won’t leave a damn thing out, either. He called me and told me I had to take my men on a routine raid. There were supposedly weapons left behind in an abandoned house, and we were supposed to retrieve them so the enemy couldn’t use them against us. Clear cut and easy.”