Page 73 of Touchdown, Tennessee

It was so obvious that he meant them. The man wore his heart on his sleeve, and he usually wasn’t afraid to tell me anything, positive or negative.

I didn’t really know how to handle it.

“You’re a good person,” he said now.

My chest did something weird.

Ireallydidn’t know how to handle that one.

“I’m really not,” I told him.

Andrew shrugged. “I don’t believe that. Never will.”

“I used to steal. A lot. I hurt people who didn’t deserve it. I was a cute kid on the outside, and a fucking ugly one on the inside.”

“And that was because it was forced on you,” Andrew said, his gaze growing serious.

I breathed in slowly.

I moved to sit down on the edge of his mattress.

Of course, I knew it was true. I’d known it for a long time. I was abused, and as a kid, I didn’t know better for a very long time.

But that didn’t change the fact that those experiences would be baked into me for a lifetime.

I’d never be able to forget them.

Never be able to make up for some of the people who had been manipulated by my mother.

My chest felt heavy. I was still very drunk, but also cut up, bruised, and feeling way too vulnerable after sharing things with Andrew.

“No one who knows the real me sticks around for long, Andrew,” I said softly.

The words were so real.

Too real.

But Andrew just looked at me, shrugging one shoulder, as if all of myuglinesscould just melt off of him.

“Well, I would. If you weren’t such an egotistical prick.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips and after a moment, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Andrew sat down on the mattress right beside me and both of us giggled like idiots for a minute.

He was still smiling when he moved in to kiss me.

Just a soft, chaste kiss this time.

Almost like boyfriends would share, after a laugh.

My heart lurched in my chest. That kiss was different. It wasn’t a hungry kiss that came from fighting or fucking, like most of our others had been.

It was intimate.

And completely fucking sweet.

The room started to spin a little, and I knew better than to blame it entirely on the alcohol or the cuts along my skin.