“For better or for worse.”
“I’ll take those odds.”
After our run-in with Serena, we get in Sean’s Silverado, and he shifts it into drive with a little more oomph than usual.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
His strong jaw seems to widen, like he’s flexing it, not that I can see the movement beneath his thick beard. “She always used Dakota against me. Anytime I called her out for flirting with other guys, anytime I wanted to take a step back, all she had to do was say Dakota’s name, and I was powerless.”
I lean against the back of the seat and watch him. Everything about him is strong and solid, like foundation and framework. But I get the sense he thinks that’s all he is—a support beam for someone else’s life instead of the person you build a life around.
And that makes me furious.
“She weaponized her own daughter to keep you under her thumb? That’s not how you treat another person,” I say, barely keeping myself from spitting fire. “Youorher. That poor little girl is going to grow up with a distorted view of what love is and how to get it. But that’s not your fault or your responsibility.”
“I could have changed it. How is that not my responsibility?”
My brain whirs like a laptop. “Good point. You know, I heard about a kid who broke his arm falling off the jungle gym at the park last week. You could’ve stopped that if you’d only hovered by the monkey bars every afternoon and caught him.”
“That’s different, and you know it.”
“You don’t owe Dakota anything more than you do that little boy at the park. Serena made sure of that.”
“It’s not like I can stop caring.”
“Caring is different than beating yourself up about it.”
“Who says I’m beating myself up?”
“Your wife. That’s who.”
He sniffs.
“Sean, I don’t blame you for hurting still, but you have to stop letting Serena manipulate you. She doesn’t get to have it both ways. She chose to kick you out of Dakota’s life when she kicked you out of hers.”
“I could still be there for Dakota.”
“As what, a babysitter? Isn’t that why Serena kept you around all those years?”
He winces, and a prick in my chest tells me I’ve gone too far. Unfortunately, the way she treated him back there lit something in me. A foreign anger bubbles in me like lava. Thinking of her mistreating him makes me want to erupt.
“Are you not allowed to have boundaries? Are you not allowed to keep yourself safe from being hurt? Is that it?” The heat in my voice rises. “We’re supposed to throw ourselves in front of the same bus again and again because someone else calls it love?”
I scoff, not at him but at the injustice of it all. “Sean, that isn’t love; that’s manipulation. You’re not a consolation prize, and I’m not a trophy. We’re humans. Messy, amazing, spectacularly hot humans. We don’t belong on someone’s shelf.”
Sean’s brows knit together tightly, and I pull a knee up under my chin, feeling stupid. I took it too far, got too heated, said too much.
“Spectacularly hot?” he finally says.
I laugh, relief flooding me, along with embarrassment. “Did I say that?”
“You did.”
I bury my head in my hands. “I guess I got carried away.”
Sean pulls one of my hands down and holds it between us.
“You’re not a trophy,” he says. “But at least Aldridge realized you were the grand prize.”
