Page 96 of Skins Game

“Anything. Somethingreal.”

“Real. That’s a tall order.”

“Real,” she said. “Tell me about your family.”

He shifted her off of him and started to roll toward the side of the bed. “I’ve got a better idea. We have a bottle of champagne in the next room, and the ice is surely melting.”

“Kingston!”

His head dropped before he turned and looked at her over his strong shoulder, a mild smile softening his face. “Yes?”

“This is—” She tried to come up with the right word. “This is scaring me. We’ve been—whatever this is—this off-and-on thing—for a while. For four months. We seem to be moving forward—traveling together, spending weekends together—but there are vast tracts of unknown territory in you. When I ask you about some things, it’s like I come to a barrier, a wall, and it’s absolute.”

He nodded. “Boundaries.”

“Okay. I—okay.”Nicole was from California. Everyone she knew had been in therapy at some point. “I understand boundaries, but this doesn’t feel like boundaries. This feels like you’re hiding things from me, a lot of things. It feels likebadthings.”

He turned around on the bed, sitting with his long legs crossed and the covers pulled up to his waist. “Please stop asking.”

Worry for him warred with fear for herself.

Nicole had terrible taste in men.

She knew this. Arvind and some of her high school friends had joked that they should vet any possible boyfriends before Nicole started seriously dating them because she always fell for the wrong guy.

The wrong guy had bad secrets, like a wife, kids, a house, and an actual dog, a Pomeranian.

The wrong guy devastated her heart and her soul. Craig had broken her soul because he’d lied to her, and he’d cheated on his wifewithher. He’d made her into a homewrecker, a cheater, too.

A smarter woman would have seen the red flags waving from the ramparts, but Nicole had had her eyes on the fairy tale castle.

Until Craig’s wife had called Nicole’s cell phone and called her a cheating scum.

And after Arvind had done a little internet stalking for her, Nicole had texted Craig that it was over and never seen him again, not when he’d said he could explain, not when he’d called her a dumb bitch and she’d known what she was doing.

Because she’d been in love.

Falling for another guy who wasn’t who he said he was would be stupid.

“I need to know what’s going on with you,” she said.

Kingston blinked and looked up at the ceiling, breaking eye contact with her. “I don’t want to end the night like this.”

“Likewhat?”she demanded.

39

Vulnerable

KINGSTON MOORE

Placating her was Kingston’s foremost thought.

Nicole was right. They weren’t boundaries. They were walls, and they were there for a reason.

Don’t say it. Please don’t say it. Please don’t utter it, ever.

The world is a finite place, a means to an end that were ends to the end, ideas and connections and people and worlds that die.