Page 23

Chapter 23

Riley

That was the worst night of sleep I’d had since my combat days. Even after laying down the law with my parents, I’d managed to sleep. Probably because I’d been more relieved than anything.

After Sophia’s bachelorette—fuck. There were too many pieces trying too hard to snap together in my mind. I didn’t want them to. I didn’t want to acknowledge the truth that was plain to see right in front of my stupid face.

But I couldn’t ignore it, either.

Not when Nolan’s body language gave him away at every turn. Not when…

Jesus. Was I reading the situation all wrong? I hoped I was, but every time I turned it all over in my head while he slept beside me, the truth sank in a little deeper.

And with wedding festivities ramping up and family events getting more frequent, I needed to know the truth. More than anything, I needed Nolan to know I had his back.

So, after we’d both showered and were about to head out to find breakfast, I said, “Before we go, can we talk about something?”

Nolan froze, eyebrows up. “Uh. Okay? What about?” His guard was fully up, though; I had a feeling he knew where this was going.

“Um. Well. There’s something I want to ask you about.” I searched his eyes. “About last night and… not just last night?”

He watched me, even more walls going up. “Okay?”

I schooled my voice and chose my words carefully. “It was her, wasn’t it? Leann?”

The way he clenched his jaw and swallowed answered well enough.

“You don’t have to tell me what she did,” I said quickly. “If you want to, I’ll listen. But I’m not going to drag anything out of you. I just… After last night…” I grimaced and shook my head. “She’s not exactly subtle.”

“No, she isn’t.”

I exhaled. “Not gonna lie, before last night, I thought it was that neighbor.”

Nolan furrowed his brow. “Neighbor? What—” But then the piece seemed to fall into place. “You mean Gordon?”

I nodded, not sure why my face was burning. “I mean, he seems creepy, and everyone was keeping their kids away from hm, so…”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that.” Nolan shook his head. “I don’t like him because he’s a homophobe. He’s always been a dick about me being gay. Honestly, I think the only reason my parents still put up with him is that it’s easier to be friendly neighbors with him than it is to be on his shit list.”

“But what about everyone keeping their kids away from him?”

Nolan half-shrugged. “That’s just because he’ll start talking about whatever, even with kids right there. Dude’s got no filter at all, and he taught most of us to swear before we were in first grade. He’s obnoxious, but he’s not dangerous. Not that I know of.”

“Oh.” Well, damn. My cop instincts were batting a thousand on this trip, weren’t they? “And Leann—nobody knows what she did?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Nobody but me and her.”

“Have you thought about telling—”

“Of course I have, but I can’t say anything now!” He stared at me, expression full of—not anger or defensiveness—but panic and desperation. “I’m not going to ruin my little brother’s wedding!”

“But she ruined—God, what hasn’t she ruined for you? You wouldn’t be ruining a damned thing. You’d just be making her face the music for what she did!”

“Not now,” he said plaintively. “Even if I wanted to say something, I’ve had over a decade to do it. Letting it out now would be a dick move.” He swallowed hard. “It can… If I’m going to do it, it can wait until after Matt’s wedding.”

“Except don’t you have to walk up the aisle with her?”

Nolan squirmed as if he wanted to crawl out of his skin. “I can handle it. And it isn’t like she’ll do anything during the ceremony, you know?”

“She… okay. Maybe not. But… For Christ’s sake. You shouldn’t have to just knuckle through standing next to your rapist .”

He flinched again.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“It’s okay. And the story is—it’s long and ugly.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I think I can piece some of it together, unfortunately.”

He met my gaze, those blue eyes full of too many emotions to name. “ Can I tell you?”

My heart jumped. “Of course you can. You don’t have to, but if you want to…”

“I think I need to. The way what she did completely derailed my life… no one else knows.” He paused. “No one who’s still in my life, anyway.”

Blood pounded in my ears, and I touched his knee. “Tell me?”

He was quiet for a long, long time, eyes unfocused. I didn’t know if he was pulling his thoughts together, figuring out where to start, or maybe even flashing back to an uglier time in his life.

“You still with me?” I asked softly, just to be sure he wasn’t quietly having a flashback.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m…” He shook his head. Then he took a deep breath. “So, all this?” He gestured at the extensive tattoos covering his arm, then at his side, where his shirt covered more work on his ribs. “This didn’t start just because I like ink. I do like it, but this…” He dropped his gaze and shook his head.

I swallowed. “Self-harm?”

Shame twisted his features as he nodded. “It was something I could control. Something nobody could take away.” He scratched the back of his neck. “When I was at Twentynine Palms, one of my artists caught on. I’m not—I have no idea what gave it away, but she figured it out.”

“Jesus,” I whispered. “But doesn’t that mean… every time you look at your tattoos…”

“For a while, yeah. But I’ve had some of the earlier ones covered up.” He gestured at an elaborate and very dark dragon encircling his upper right arm. “Replaced them with the ones I liked, you know? Instead of something I got just because I was in a bad place.” He grimaced. “Getting the one on my ribs redone fucking sucked, but it was worth it.”

I shivered; I’d watched a buddy get a rib tattoo once, and he’d given up on being stoic after the first ten minutes or so. And Nolan had been tattooed there twice?

“The worst part was getting them removed first,” he went on. “Some of them could be covered up, but some—they were too dark, so they had to come off first.” He shuddered. “That fucking sucked.”

My mouth went dry. Every layer he peeled off his past just made me sicker.

“I finally only have tattoos I like,” he whispered, running his fingers along the intricate abstract design on his left forearm. “There’s nothing left of what she did. Not on my skin, anyway.”

“But it’s still there,” I said. “In…” I tapped my temple.

“Unfortunately.” He rubbed his forehead as if this whole thing gave him a headache. It probably did. “She told me every time—and she’s told me a hundred times since—that if I ever tell anyone, she’d say I raped her .”

Fury had me on my feet in an instant. “Are you kidding me?”

Nolan jumped, staring at me with huge eyes.

“For fuck’s sake.” I threw up my hands. “That’s—that’s exactly the shit that keeps women from reporting assaults! I literally know women who were assaulted, and the minute they made the accusation, people accused them of making false accusations and—ugh! What the fuck? Is this woman a goddamned psychopath?”

“Maybe,” he said in a small voice. “All I know is she locked on to me as soon as I came out as gay. She straight up told me and everyone else that I just hadn’t had fucked the right girl yet, so I was confused.”

“Oh God. I know a few lesbians who’ve heard that from men, but I didn’t realize…”

“Me neither,” he muttered. “But she was determined. She bullied me about it constantly through junior high and high school. I mostly ignored it because she was just a mean girl, you know?”

I nodded as I leaned against the dresser. I knew the type.

“I didn’t think anything of it,” he continued. “Like I never thought she’d actually do anything, you know? Like, physically?”

“But she did.”

Gaze distant, he nodded. Silence hung between us for a long moment. I wasn’t sure what to say, or if Nolan even wanted to keep this conversation going. All I could do now was wait for him to break the silence.

My heart sank deeper with each passing second. I knew him. He was going to close off, suggest we get out of this room and go… I don’t know. Eat? Drive around? Find some steeply-inclined trail to hike up until our legs lost feeling?

I wasn’t ready when he started talking.

“I was a wrestler in high school,” he said.

I tensed. “I… Yeah, you’ve mentioned that.” I chewed my lip, afraid of where this was going.

He stared at the floor, absently turning his phone between his long fingers as if he just needed something to occupy his hands. “The first time it happened was after a wrestling tournament.”

I held very, very still, afraid to even breathe, as if the slightest sound or movement might startle him back into his shell.

“I was exhausted,” he whispered. “I’d won my weight class, and it was great, you know? I was thrilled. But I’d also wrestled like eight different guys in two days. We had a big party afterward, and I was pumped over everything, but then…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Then it all caught up with me, I guess. I was suddenly so tired I could barely stand.” He rubbed the back of his neck before dropping his hand back into his lap, and he kept his gaze down. “I don’t really remember how it went down—she had her car there, and she offered to give me a ride home. She’d been dating my brother on and off since junior high, so I didn’t think anything of if.”

“And she took you home?” I asked softly.

“Eventually,” he whispered, his gaze turning distant. “I don’t even remember walking out to the car. I guess I passed out almost immediately. When I came around…” He swallowed like he had to seriously work at it, and his eyes flicked up to meet mine, full of more emotions than I could count. “She was on me.”

I blinked. “She… Do you think she roofied you?”

“Maybe?” The word came out thin and soundless. “I was always tired after tournaments, but never like that. I’ve… I was never even that tired during the worst stretches of boot camp or combat missions.”

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

“Yeah.” He laughed bitterly. “I kind of thought I dreamed it, you know? I woke up the next morning, and I felt really weird, but the night before—it just didn’t seem real. Like I’d hallucinated it.” He shifted his gaze to his hands again. “But the way she looked at me the next time I saw her—it didn’t feel right, you know? Like she was… I guess smug? I don’t know.”

I pushed out a breath. “Because she got away with it.”

“Probably,” he said shakily. “Couple of weeks later, she made this comment about deflowering two thirds of the Tyler brothers. And I thought, what the fuck? Did she cheat on Andrew with Matt? But then I remembered the ‘dream’ I had that night, and…”

“You were a virgin?”

Some color rose in his cheeks as he nodded, and he still didn’t look at me. “She kept making all these little comments, especially when no one else was around. And she suddenly decided she really, really liked calling me my wrestling nickname.” He sat back on his hands and stared up at the ceiling.

“Was she calling you that before—before she did what she did?”

“Sometimes. But after, there was like an edge to it that I couldn’t quite understand. Like she was making an inside joke that I should get, but… I mean, that’s what everyone called me.” His shoulders sagged. “She’s the only one who still uses it, and only she and I know why.”

The echoes of her calling him that name at the strip club turned my stomach. It had annoyed me in the moment because Nolan clearly hadn’t liked it. Had I known that underlying meaning… Fucking hell.

“Before I enlisted,” Nolan said, shifting gears, “I had a wrestling scholarship alongside an academic one.” He swallowed. “Between the two, I was looking at a full ride.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Like I said, I was undefeated for two and a half seasons. Won state two years in a row, and I was favored to win it my senior year, too.” He swept his tongue across his lips. “Halfway through that last season, I dropped out. Told my coaches and my parents—everyone, that I’d hurt my back.” He finally met my gaze. “Truth was, I couldn’t stand being touched. And I definitely couldn’t handle being restrained or held down. No one had ever pinned me, no matter how hard they tried, but just thinking about someone getting me on my back suddenly freaked me out so damn bad.” He swiped at his eyes and paused to catch his breath. “I couldn’t do it anymore, and I couldn’t tell anyone why. They all still think I hurt my back.”

His parents’ comments about that made my neck prickle. They really had no clue. None at all. “Jesus.”

“Yeah. And the university said they still wanted me, but I dropped everything. Pulled my application, declined the scholarships, and enlisted in the Marine Corps. I had to get the hell out of here and away from everyone.”

“The university wouldn’t get you out of town?”

He shook his head slowly. “It’s in Seattle. Even if I stayed on-campus, I’d only be like twenty miles from home.”

“Shit,” I breathed.

“Yeah. So I quit the team and focused on getting ready for basic.” He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Leann didn’t stop, though.”

Ice crackled along my spine. “She didn’t?”

“No. Even though I’d quit the team, I still went to the party at the end of the season.” He swallowed hard. “So did she. And I… I’m still not even sure how, but she got me alone again. I was still out of it that time, but not as bad. It’s, um… That night is why I don’t drink tequila.”

“She got you drunk?”

“I was a little drunk already,” he admitted. “But I do remember she gave me a drink that night. Something with tequila in it. And the way it hit me, I’m pretty sure it was more than tequila.”

“Holy fuck,” I whispered.

“Yeah. She, um… I was so freaked out that time that I couldn’t get it up, and she was like, ‘yeah, Gumby definitely fits you.’ And that’s when I realized why she’d been using the name ever since the first time—I think with whatever she had me on, I either couldn’t get it up or couldn’t keep it up.” His cheeks darkened as he stared at the floor between us. “I guess I couldn’t keep it up. Because I know… I mean, the…” He paused, lips twisting with disgust. “The sex definitely happened both times.”

Jesus Christ, I was going to be sick.

“Then she got serious with Andrew,” he whispered. “And… fuck. I couldn’t get away from her. I told her to stay away from my brother, tried to talk him out of dating her, but…” He shook his head. “Andrew just thought I was jealous, and that was when Leann cornered me up and told me she’d tell everyone I’d raped her if I ever breathed a word of it. I tried to tell him anyway, but…” He raked a shaky hand through his short hair. “He just wouldn’t listen.”

“Did it happen again after that?” I asked cautiously. “After they started dating?”

“Yeah. They went out one night—partying while our parents were out of town. I assume they were partying, because Andrew was pretty hungover the next morning. Anyway, she spent the night at the house with him. I didn’t know she was even there—I was asleep before they came home.” He shifted, his expression sick and miserable. “I went to bed, then woke up in the middle of the night with her…” He trailed off, raking a shaky hand through his hair. “I don’t even know how she got past the lock on my bedroom door, but… She got in, and we—well, I was sober then, so things… worked.”

His face colored. Mine was probably as white as the walls by now. Jesus.

“Before she left,” he went on, “she said, ‘I knew you’d get it up for me eventually.’” He dropped his face into his hands and swore, then slid his hands to the back of his neck, pressing his elbows into his thighs. “God, I have never felt more disgusting in my life.”

I chafed my arms. “Holy shit.

He wiped a hand over his face, and he sounded exhausted as he said, “The last time was after she and Andrew were married.”

“Are you—” I sputtered. “Are you serious?”

He nodded slowly. “I came home for the holidays after my combat tour, and my folks rented a cabin for the week of Christmas and New Year’s. Invited the whole family.” He swiped at his eyes again. “That time she didn’t wait until the middle of the night.”

My teeth snapped together. “Oh shit.”

“She told me she knew she’d gotten under my skin and that’s why I’d missed their wedding. Which—I was in Afghanistan, you know? It wasn’t like I had a choice. But she was just convinced I’d volunteered or something just to avoid their wedding. So when she finally got me alone…” He waved a hand as if to say, do the math . “She told me the whole time we were—the whole time it was happening that if I didn’t do everything she wanted, she’d scream, and who were they going to believe was the rapist? The woman, or the Marine who was twice her size?” Lifting his head, he looked at me with tears glittering on his lashes. “So what else could I do? And we—she fucking did it with my entire family, including her husband, down the hall in the living room. I was terrified we were going to get caught because they’d all immediately blame me. She was right—who the fuck was going to believe me? So I… I went through with it because I was too scared not to.”

“Oh my God.” I couldn’t take the distance anymore, and I crossed the narrow distance to sit beside him on the bed and clasp his hand in mine. “Nolan. Jesus Christ…”

“That’s the last time it’s ever happened, thank God,” he croaked. “Mostly because I’ve stayed away as much as I can. She still fucks with my head, though.”

“I noticed,” I gritted out.

He was silent for a moment. Then, “You want to know what the worst part is about that last time?”

My stomach dropped. “It gets worse? ”

He coughed a humorless laugh. “With this clown car of bullshit? Trust me—it gets worse.”

I stared at him, wondering what could possibly be coming.

Nolan exhaled. “The timing—and she’s made sure to never let me forget this…” He rubbed his eyes. “There’s a possibility Zoe—their oldest—is my daughter.”

My stomach threatened to surge up my throat. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Nolan whispered. “And that’s one of the reasons I’ve never said anything. Partly because Leann threatened to claim I raped her, but also because I’m afraid if someone actually does believe me, they’ll do a paternity test on Zoe, and…” He shook his head. “Andrew adores his kids. They’re his world. If it turned out any of them weren’t his—especially if one was the product of his wife raping his own brother—it would destroy him. And the kids. I…” He actually looked like he might get sick for real. “I can’t do that to them.”

My chest hurt as I absorbed everything he’d said. He was the victim in all of this, but he still held his silence because the truth would hurt too many other people. He refused to ruin his younger brother’s wedding, and he refused to break up his older brother’s family, and in the name of protecting both, he’d suffer the presence and continued abuse of his rapist.

“She’s the reason I’m so weird about sex,” Nolan said quietly. “And… about everything, honestly.”

“After what she did—I’m not surprised.”

He met my gaze, his eyes asking if I meant that. Apparently convinced, he went on, “It’s also why I can’t handle having someone in my lap. It’s…” He shuddered hard.

I squeezed his hand. “That’s why you went pale at the strip club, isn’t it? When they bought you a lap dance?”

He nodded. “I just can’t do it. It’s too much like…”

“Holy fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“What? No! You have nothing to be sorry about!”

“I do, though.” He met my gaze with a fierceness that hadn’t been there before. “I’ve had all these rules about us hooking up. I know you didn’t like them. Sleeping apart. Keeping clothes on. I…” He shook his head. “I know that sucked for you. But I just…”

“I’m not upset about that,” I said gently. “I’m livid that someone traumatized you enough that you felt you needed to keep the whole world at arm’s length.” I huffed angrily. “You changed the entire course of your life because of her. That isn’t right! She shouldn’t have done that to you!”

He looked in my eyes, searching my expression for something. Then, voice uncharacteristically timid, he asked, “So you… You believe me?”

The words, “Are you fucking kidding me? Of course I believe you!” wanted to fly out of my mouth, but I’d had too much training and some direct experience with victims of sexual abuse. A lot of them didn’t expect to be believed, and a lot of people didn’t believe them.

I slid closer to him and wrapped my arms around him. “Yes,” I whispered, stroking his head, “I believe you.”

The way he exhaled after hearing those words was heartbreaking.

“And I get why you didn’t want to sleep next to me.” I had to fight back my incandescent rage over what she’d done to him. “After what she did while you were sleeping… or drugged…” Shame swept over me at the realization of how many times I’d asked him to stay with me, and how angry and hurt I’d been that he wouldn’t. “Honestly, knowing what I do now, I think it’s a genuine miracle you ever decided you wanted to sleep next to me.”

“I trust you,” he said almost soundlessly.

I closed my eyes and held him tighter. The last thing he needed was for me to fall apart, and hearing him say those words after everything he’d confessed—yeah, falling apart was definitely on the table.

When I could finally trust my voice, I asked, “You’ve really never told anyone?”

Nolan shook his head and sniffed as he wiped his eyes again. “Not the whole story, no. I told a couple of boyfriends—never the entire thing, but enough—and that just blew up in my face.”

“How so?”

“They…” He bit his lip. “I didn’t tell them everything. Not the details. I tipped my hand a little to one, and he thought I was a pussy for claiming to be assaulted by a woman. Another guy had been assaulted by another man, so I thought maybe he’d understand, but…” Nolan shook his head. “He was furious with me.”

“Furious? What the fuck? Why?”

“Because the guy who assaulted him overpowered him. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He didn’t think getting ‘attacked’ by a woman compared at all.” He rubbed his forehead. “That’s why I shut down and stopped telling anyone. Then I just stopped getting close enough to anyone that it would come up. My last boyfriend—I told him in vague terms that something had happened to me, but he didn’t stick around because he got tired of all my boundaries and ‘rules.’ So I just…” Nolan waved his hand. “I stopped trying to have relationships. It was pointless. I could never feel safe with anyone, so…”

“Fuck, dude.” I took his hand. “Those were some seriously shitty people.”

“I know. But after her and after them—why bother making the effort anymore, you know? It was never safe.” He met my gaze. “Not until you.”

My throat was suddenly tight with a flurry of emotions I didn’t even recognize, and I brought his hand up to kiss his palm. “I’m safe. I promise. And for what it’s worth, I’ve never felt unsafe with you.”

“I know.” He smiled even as his eyes welled up. “Before you, though… I mean, this is why I’ve been alone most of the time I’ve been in the Marine Corps. I’ve had some hookups and those few boyfriends, but… it just didn’t work. I have too much baggage to function like a normal boyfriend. I can’t even be a normal fuck buddy.”

My chest ached and I squeezed his hand. “It’s trauma, baby. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

He looked at me with wet eyes. “That’s easy to say. In practice…”

I winced. I wanted to tell him that wasn’t the case, but obviously in his experience, it was. And hadn’t I met and dated plenty of men who had barely any tolerance for a boyfriend with any kind of baggage or trauma? I’d been dumped before because the guy hadn’t wanted to deal with the headache of a partner whose parents didn’t accept his queerness. Another couldn’t cope with my very moderate PTSD from the combat tour I’d completed three months before I met him.

So, yeah, unfortunately, I could believe that someone who’d been through what Nolan had would struggle to connect with people. Not because there was a damn thing wrong with him, but because way too many people could seriously be assholes.

Nolan took a deep breath and asked, “Remember how we met?”

“Of course.”

He wrung his hands. “I didn’t ask for someone to stay with her around the clock because I thought she’d steal from me or because I thought she’d feel safer. I mean, yeah, I did want her to feel as safe as possible, but the truth is…” He worked his jaw. “I’m the one who didn’t feel safe.”

My lips parted. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t be alone with women. Especially one-on-one. It’s…” He shook his head.

“It’s how your rapist got to you,” I said hollowly.

The way he winced was an utter gut punch. So was his soft admission of, “Yeah. It is.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I know up here”—he touched his temple—“that she’s a fucking psycho and the odds of another woman trying to do the same thing to me are pretty slim. But when I’m alone with a woman…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “It’s terrifying for reasons I can’t explain to anyone. Anyone except you.” His eyes begged me not to judge him, not to repeat any of this, not to laugh at him.

The only thing I was in danger of doing in that moment was sprinting into the bathroom to violently heave.

He dropped his gaze. “I’ve tried to tell myself for a long time that I’m overreacting. I mean, it’s not like she put a gun to my head or threatened me with a knife or something. I could’ve stopped her. Physically. But in the moment…” He scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Well, you were asleep in one instance, and quite possibly drugged in two others.”

“Not always, though.”

“Right, but she was threatening and blackmailing you. Baby, remember, I’ve literally been trained in what constitutes sexual assault. I will never forget one of my instructors saying a rapist doesn’t even have to raise their voice. Coercion isn’t consent.”

That seemed to jostle something in him, and he worked his jaw as he wrung his hands. “The last time,” he went on, speaking so softly I barely heard him, “she told me that since I not only got it up, I got off, that was proof that I wanted it.” He sighed and shook his head. “I know that’s a lie. I know it is. But it still got into my head, you know? And then for a long time after that, I couldn’t get it up or get off with people I did want, so…” He threw up a hand. “What the fuck do I know?”

“It is a lie,” I said. “Getting hard and coming are not consent. Women can even come during an assault. Still doesn’t make it any less rape.”

The word made him wince. “I fucking hate this. And I hate that you know. I never wanted anyone to know, but…” He swiped at his eyes. “Carrying it alone fucking sucked.”

“I bet it did.” I took his hand in both of mine and looked right in his eyes. “For the record, I believe you. Completely. And I don’t think any less of you because of it. What she did to you was fucking terrible, and whatever boundaries and triggers you have because of that—I respect them, okay? I want you to be safe with me. If there’s something you want us to do that pushes your limits, I’m in, but I’m also totally fine with backing off if it’s too much. I want you to enjoy being with me, not feel like you’re in a minefield.”

By the time I was finished, he had tears rolling down his face, and he avoided my gaze with an expression I recognized all too well—a man who really hated someone seeing him cry.

I let go of his hand and pulled him in. “Nothing leaves this room, okay? I promise. And nothing we do or don’t do is a deal breaker.” I smoothed his hair as he trembled against me. “I just want you to be safe.”

“I am,” he whispered unsteadily. “With you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, not even caring that a few hot tears of my own slipped free. “You’re completely safe with me. I promise.”

He sighed, leaning into me. “You have no idea how many guys think that’s unattractive and not masculine.”

“I don’t care what they think. There’s nothing unattractive about you, and anyone who thinks you’re unmasculine hasn’t seen you in your utilities.”

That, thank God, made him chuckle. Letting me go, he sat up and wiped his eyes.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “For letting me get all this out. It sucks to talk about, but…”

“You’re welcome.” I studied him. “How do you want to handle things going forward?”

He looked at me with sudden panic in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“The wedding? Everything leading up to it? As much as I’d love for us to avoid her for the rest of this trip, that probably won’t be possible.”

Nolan shuddered. “I, um… I don’t know. I don’t really know what we can do that won’t have people thinking something is up.”

“Okay. Well. How about this? If you do think of something in the moment, let me know. Text it to me if you have to. Or if I see a way to put some space between you and her without raising any eyebrows, I’ll let you know.” I touched his arm. “Worst case, we’re out of here in like a week and a half.”

He exhaled, his shoulders sagging. “Thank fuck for that. And… I like your plan. We’ll play it by ear.” He cracked a subtle smile. “Thanks for having my back.”

“Any time.”

I meant it to my core.

But I wasn’t sure I trusted myself to be around Leann after this.