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Chapter Four

T he verdict was in, and despite years of telling myself otherwise, it had become overwhelmingly true last night. I really was an asshole.

I’m sure she’ll be sound asleep, Maggie had assured me.

She sure as hell wasn’t. But it would’ve made my life a hell of a lot easier if she had been. I could’ve come home, gone to bed, and found some way to gently send her packing the next morning before this whole situation spiraled into what it had, keeping my privacy intact and her self-esteem a little less shattered.

Driving home from the arena, dread had settled like a rock in my stomach at the idea of finding some random girl in my space. I realized how completely absurd the whole arrangement was. There were plenty of ways to make up for my shortcomings to Maggie that didn’t involve playing host to a stranger. The whole ride, I’d rehearsed exactly what I’d say to let her down gently—that I was sorry, but my life was too busy, my space too sacred. She’d just have to figure something else out. I was sure she’d understand.

But then, I saw her.

I opened the door, and there she was. Whatever carefully crafted speech I’d put together vanished the moment she looked at me. Instead of handling it like a civilized adult, I acted like the exact kind of asshole everyone always claimed I was.

I was an ass. I’d been ticked off that Maggie had spewed a bunch of lies, wrapping Cassie and me both in a situation bound for disaster. And more than that, I was frustrated that I needed to be the one to clear it up.

Then, like a switch had been flicked, all that anger inside me evaporated the second her face fell. I watched the change in real-time—confusion giving way to realization and, finally, that unmistakable flicker of hurt settling across her features.

God, she looked like I sucker-punched her. I felt it like a blow to my stomach. I mean, her lip fucking trembled. It was too much to bear. But even after that, she didn’t tell me off for being a dick. No, she forced herself to smile at me, continuing the conversation as if I hadn’t just made the worst day of her life a hundred times harder.

And then, when she said she was actually going back to that asshole ex to try and work things out, that’s when I really lost it.

For years, I’d heard Maggie’s stories about this guy who took the ‘shitty boyfriend’ archetype to a whole new league, and now that I had to stare at the face of the girl who was on the receiving end of that, I couldn’t handle it.

It only took two minutes with her to realize that she didn’t deserve to be treated like that. The thought of her going back to someone like that, trying to repair things just because she was scared of the unknown, was infuriating. She deserved better. Anyone would.

And that’s exactly what I tried to tell her. Except thanks to whatever screwed up, miswired part of my brain that’s responsible for thought-to-speech processing, whatever came out sure as hell didn’t get that point across.

No, it just made her cry. I made her cry. I’d been looking at her since I got home, thinking, what type of asshole can make a girl like this feel so shitty? And then I proceeded to do exactly that.

I’d tried to make reparations, telling her that it was fine for her to stay while she looked for somewhere else because, as much as I valued my privacy and space, the idea of her going back to that guy just didn’t sit right with me.

She probably would’ve gotten back together with him, and I would’ve been responsible, and Maggie would spend the rest of her life continuing to tell me stories about Cassie’s shitty relationship. And now that I’d put a face to the name, there was no way I could live with that guilt on my conscience.

So, there she was, now sleeping soundly in the room above me, and I felt a little bit of the tension I always carried ease up.

At least I could do this one good thing, to make someone else’s life a little easier. It didn’t matter that my space would be taken up for a little bit. I could handle it.

I stayed in the kitchen late, listening to her pad around, the presence of someone else in the apartment feeling strangely foreign. I’d guarded my privacy so fiercely for years that I guess I’d forgotten what it was like to have someone around.

And really, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to give her a few weeks to find somewhere else.

But for just a few weeks, I was sticking to that. Because no matter how endearing she was with those big blue eyes, I couldn’t afford to let a stranger disrupt the life I’d worked so hard to keep in order.

And something told me her presence would be no small thing.