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“I’m okay, though.”
She gives me an eyebrow-lifted Seriously?
For a second, I let myself feel it—the ache, the emptiness, the losses, piled up—and then I push it away because?—
Well, because that’s what I’m good at. Letting go of things that aren’t mine to keep.
“Anyway,” I say. “To make a very long story short, my dad took me under his wing, made my career, and—” I stop.
And that’s when my inner wall starts to crumble. It starts as a knot in my chest, but it grows teeth and claws and—holy shit. I grit my teeth, but there’s no stopping the hurt.
“Shane,” she says.
“But that was it,” I say quietly. “That was all. We never went to a Dodgers game. We never went to a Lakers game. We never went to fucking lunch unless it was to talk about work. He never asked me if I’d made friends or met anyone I cared about. Oh—oh,” I say with a hard laugh. “Just that time when I tried to make a relationship work with a close friend. April. It didn’t, and—well, I was upset because I’d fucked up the friendship and hurt her… My dad wanted to know why I was a sad sack, and when I told him, he said, ‘Hadley men don’t fall in love.’”
I stop because my throat is tight and dry and I need a drink. I take a swig, and she reaches out and puts a hand on my thigh. And maybe I should just stop because it feels so good, her warmth through my jeans. I want to cover her hand with mine, I want to seal her to me. I thought being wrapped around her last night was intimacy, but no, it’s this, it’s the way she listens and hears and is still right here.
“The worst part is,” I say, “I chose him over my brothers and sister.”
“Stop that,” she says. “The fact that you wanted to go to LA and be an actor, and the fact that you thought he might actually want to be a dad to you—neither of those things makes you a bad person.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. When I finally get words out, it’s just a Quinn-gruff “Thanks.”
She eyes me. “Just so you know,” she says, “I love men who cry.” She thinks about that a second. “Men who cry for real and don’t just fake it while you’re watching a rom-com so you get naked for them.”
That wrenches a smile out of me. “Anthony?”
“Yup.”
“Bastard.” I clear my throat. “I didn’t grow up with great role models on the real-men-cry front, so I might need some work on that before you see the day. The ones in my life would have rather cut off their own pinkies. Probably need to move up that Find a therapist entry on my to-do list.”
She laughs.
I do, too. And for the first time since I went to LA, I let myself be really fucking pissed at my dad for not even trying to be what I needed.
She’s quiet for a moment, and I watch her, my heart in my throat. She’s beautiful like a stained glass window is beautiful, like a porcelain doll is beautiful, but she’s neither fragile nor fake, and right now I just want to be enough for her. I want to be what she deserves.
“Give me a sec,” I say and pull out my phone.
I text my agent: Tell Tim Ernst I’m in.
I look up to find her watching me, a small smile curving the corner of her soft mouth. “I made it so,” I tell her. “I took the job I want.”
Her smile gets bigger.
“Thank you,” I say.
She frowns. “For what?”
“For…making me feel like I’m worth fighting for, I guess.”
Expression softening, she holds up her glass. “You definitely are. You’re—” She bites her lip.
My eyes are drawn there, to where her teeth dent the softness of her lip. Lush, a little bruised-looking from the coloring in the drinks, utterly kissable. I reach out a finger. Stroke it over her bottom lip, which softens under my touch.
She releases a small exhale, just shy of a moan.
My whole body wakes up in response, cock stirring and hardening.
