“How many times?”
The silence that follows is its own answer.
“Skylar.”
“Three.”
Cassie’s eyes go wide and stay that way.
“You absolute dirty whore. I envy you,” she says with a smirk.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It was exactly like that.” She straightens up. “Are you still on birth control?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Good. That’s something.” She pauses, turning it over. “But you don’t know whether he has been with anyone else since he got out.”
“No,” I say quietly. “I don’t.”
The word since sits between us, carrying with it everything it implies.
Cassie nods slowly, processing this. Then, because she is Cassie and cannot help herself, she says, “Was it good?”
I glare at her.
Her grin spreads across her face. “That good, huh? Of course it was. It was Zane. Condolences to every other man on earth. Truly. Thoughts and prayers.”
I drop my head back against the couch and stare at the ceiling, now regretting every single one of those drunken nights when the wine was cheap, my mouth was loose, and I told Cassie exactly how good Zane Rivera was at taking his time with my body, in specific detail.
A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it and then I’m both crying and laughing at the same time.
Cassie puts her arm around me and wordlessly pulls me into her side.
I lean into her, letting myself fall apart.
Chapter 15
Zane
It’s been three fucking days.
Three days since her car pulled away from the curb and I stood on the concrete outside the workshop, watching it go.
She hasn’t called.
She hasn’t come back either.
I told myself I wouldn’t read too much into it because she needs time, space, and room to figure out what she wants without me standing there, making it harder for her. That is the ugly part of me trying to become a better man.
Rainer told me to give her space, that I owed her that. But fuck, space is overrated. No matter how much it kills me, it’s the first thing I can give her without screwing it up.
Doesn’t mean it feels noble about it.
It just means I stand here in this workshop with a wrench in my hand and her face in my head, pretending I am thinking about engines.
Let me be clear.
