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I heard his audible gulp. Yeah, he was going to try to lie to me.
“It’s not what you think,” he chuckled. “It’s more like…like…”
I turned and stared at him, waiting for his response. “Like what?”
“Um…okay, so I’m not exactly a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. I go out when I’m needed.”
“Again, how often is that?”
“Look,” he sighed, “This is my job. I would never ask you to leave yours.”
“Well, my job doesn’t involve being shot at!”
He turned and raised an eyebrow at me. “Really? You’re going to say that after today?”
I narrowed my eyes at him and he frowned.
“Too soon?”
“The point is, I teach kids. You’re talking about carrying a…a weapon! And you use it!”
“Well, if I didn’t, my chances of coming home to you would greatly decrease.”
“Are you mocking me?” I snapped.
“No! I’m pointing out the obvious. You should be happy, really. I carry a weapon and I’m good at my job. Those two things are very important in my line of work.”
“Wow,” I huffed, staring back out the front window. “I can’t believe you’re making excuses.”
“I’m not. I’m just asking you to trust me.”
“Oh, that’s rich considering you’ve been lying to me from the start.”
“Hey, we never tell anyone what we really do. And if that shooter hadn’t entered the school, you still wouldn’t have found out.”
“Well, I guess I should be grateful that some man is an idiot!”
“Hey!” he said indignantly. “I’m not some man.”
“I was talking about the shooter. Although, the phrase applies to you also.”
I rubbed the headache that was forming at my temples. This was a mess I didn’t know how to work out. Not that there was any walking away from him. Despite what he did for a living, I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I just didn’t know how to handle the whiplash of thinking one thing only to find out something entirely different.
“I’m sorry. If I thought for even one minute you really wanted to date me, I would have told you the truth.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me when we started hanging out?”
“Because…because I was comfortable and I didn’t want to risk you leaving. And then I had waited so long, I didn’t know how to tell you.”
I sighed as he pulled the truck to a stop in his driveway. He turned to face me, grabbing my hand in his.
“Look, I’m sorry for how it all turned out. I wish I could go back and tell you from the start. Actually, I wish I could go back and realize that punching me in the shoulder wasn’t some kind of signal.”
I wished for that too, but it was too late to go back now. “I’m tired,” I sighed. “Can we just…talk about this later?”
“Sure.”
The resignation in his voice made it clear that this subject was far from over, yet neither of us really wanted to talk about it. I got out and walked up to the house with him, smiling as I remembered the first time I came here and saw the couch wedged in the door.
