Page 54 of Five

“All right, then. I have an idea for something we could do tomorrow night that might prove whether or not you can make those kinds of decisions. Perhaps it could save us all a lot of time.”

“What, like a game?” she asks, and I can hear the frown in her voice.

All I do is nod and turn the key in my lock.

“How is that supposed to prove anything? Ifyouchoose the game, then I’m still not really deciding, am I?” Neve challenges, and I find I like her more for doing that instead of just blithely agreeing.

“The game itself is a decision,” I tell her as I slip into my cabin and leave her staring after me.

She won’t win, and I don’t want her to.

Call me an asshole, but I hope it will prove to her and the others that she’s not right for us. That this entire thing may not be right for us. Because if it doesn’t…if she actually makes it through…it’ll just be another circumstance where the woman in my life isn’t really mine.

Where any babies will have a question mark over who the father is.

Where whatever happiness I manage to find can be ripped away from me in the snap of a finger.

Why the fuck would I settle for that?

But what happens if I don’t? These men are my family. If they choose her, it looks like I lose either way.

The door slams closed behind me, the sound reverberating in the still night air.

Fuck my goddamn motherfuckin’ life.

Thirteen

Neve

Mood:Ineedadrink, and I need it now…

I head back down the flagstone path, fuming.

Make my own decisions.

Fu—screw him.

I make my own decisions. I make decisions all the time, as a matter of fact, and the ones I’ve had to make lately have been doozies.

And why the heck did I just lock up like that? I sounded like a freaking moron! There’s so much I could’ve said back to him. What was that he said?

Not really a decision at all. Just a reaction to the situation…

And what’s wrong with that, hmm? Reacting to an unforeseeable event in a positive, beneficial manner isn’t something to be ashamed of.

You didn’t even make that decision for yourself!

Of course, I did. I decided to allow my friend, who knows me better than I do myself, to give me a much-needed nudge in the right direction. You trust your friends, don’t you?

Or are you so pitiful you don’t own your own reactions…

Trust me, buddy, you don’t want me owning my own reactions right now, because it would likely end with my knee in your nuts.

I shouldn’t have let him rail me like that.

I trip over a stone as an image flashes in my mind, one of me bent over the nearest horizontal surface with Jesse behind me, pumping in and out of me with leisurely, powerful strokes.

My cheeks flame hot.