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Warm chocolate-brown leather was a predominant theme amid soft beige and cooler gold upholstery and linens. A desk was leather wrapped, as was a long ottoman that stretched across the foot of a huge canopy bed. The headboard insert was leather. There was also a leather high-back chair and a matching ottoman in the corner by the windows. Both pieces were well worn, a much-used spot, given the open laptop on a side table, a yellow steno pad with wrinkled pages, and a stack of cookbooks.
Surprisingly, there was also an acoustic guitar within easy reach on a stand. I focused on that rather than the bed and the question that arose.
How well-used is that bed?
“You play the guitar?” I asked, instead of asking how many women he’d pleasured in his bed.
“Yeah, and that one’s a limited edition, Madagascar wood sides with a Sitka spruce top. A beauty, but not as beautiful as you.”
He moved in front of me, and I turned my head away from the instrument and gazed up at him.
“I thought you knew I played.” He tilted his head. “I mean, that it would logically follow, given my gift to you before I went overseas.” He curled his fingers around my upper arms again. “Did you think someone else played the guitar while I sang?”
“You sang? And played the guitar?” My questions and my befuddled expression gave him an answer he didn’t like.
His eyes narrowed. “What did you do with the gift I gave you for your eighteenth birthday?”
“I didn’t open it.” I dropped my gaze. “I left it at the Skellins’ house when I checked in at the shelter. I never went back to their house again. I don’t know what they did with it. I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t they give it to you?” His question was so soft, I barely heard it.
“That was a difficult time,” I said, hedging. “I’d just lost you.”And then Ella, I thought, but didn’t voice it.
“You didn’t lose me. Let’s get that straight once and for all.” His fingers flexed on my skin. “You sent me away.”
“I know I did.” I swallowed with difficulty around the lump in my throat. “I made it out in my mind that you represented the past. That I had to let go of everything in order to move forward.”
“You lumped me in with him.” Barry glared down at me, his gaze hard enough to break me.
“I was suffering from PTSD from the abuse. I learned that from the psychiatrist at the shelter. I messed up. You were a good memory.”
One of the few, actually, but I didn’t say that either.
My eyes filling, I glanced down at my exercise shoes. “I told you I was broken.”
“We’re circling back to this again,” he said gently. “Look at me, babe.”
I glanced up to find his expression unyieldingly hard, but I didn’t shy away from it. I was accustomed to hard. It was his gentleness, something I’d had very little of from anyone except for him, that tripped me up.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m here, and so are you. The people we were then and who we are now can be brought full circle. You just have to trust me like you used to when we were younger.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“I’m not your father.” His grip on my arms firmed. “I’m not Collin and certainly not Martin. I’m me, and I care about you very much. I always have. That didn’t stop just because you made me go away. Tell me you get that.”
I shook my head. “Barry, I don’t—”
“She doesn’t get it,” he said to himself, letting out a breath that puffed his frustration against my skin.
“Look, Barry, I’m messed up. What happened messed me up badly.” I swallowed with difficulty. “It’s not your job to make me better.”
“Whose is it, if not mine?”
“Mine,” I said firmly. “It’s my responsibility. I thought I’d already done the work, but being with you like this, trying to be with you like this, I realize it’s impossible.”
I shrugged out of his hold, and he released me. He knew he had all the power. Barry was much stronger than me, and not just physically.
“I should go.” I set my gaze on the exit to his room, out of his life, and aimed myself in that direction.
