Page 91 of Show Me

I pull back first. Not because I want to. Because I don’t trust what happens if I don’t.

The feel of her lips against mine…. The softness of her body against mine…. The need to pull her back to me and keep taking. All of it spins around me in a whirlwind of chaos. I inhale a ragged breath.

Ruby Bennett is chaos, ripping my sanity to shreds.

I step back, sliding my hands from her waist. The loss of it hits quicker than I expected. Deeper. Jagged. “We should sit.”

“Okay.” Her eyes search mine, quick, sharp, like she’s trying to read which direction this is going.

She tucks one leg beneath her on the couch, hands folding in her lap. I take the other end, leaning forward, forearms on my thighs. Space between us. Enough to breathe. Too much to ignore.

The house hums around us. Pipes settling. The refrigerator kicking on. Squirt shifting somewhere down the hall. Normal. Doesn’t feel like it.

“I don’t do relationships.” The words come out flat. Simple. There’s nothing simple about it. Tension builds between my shoulder blades.

She nods once. “I know.”

I glance down at my hands, then back up. “I’m not… built for that.” It sounds rougher out loud than it did in my head.

“I’m not asking you to be.” Her words should reassure me, but they don’t sit right.

“I know.” I pause as I try to come up with how to explain this to her. It doesn’t have anything to do with her. It’s all on me. And that’s where it should land at my feet. “I’m not going to pretend I can give you something I won’t. I won’t do that to you.”

Her fingers clench together. “You think that’s what I want?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

Hell, I always assumed that Ruby was waiting for the right guy to come along to settle down. The same as her friends. But maybe she isn’t in a relationship because she doesn’t want to be. For her own reasons. Which should be a good thing.

Silence stretches. She studies her hands like they’ll give her an answer. “Why?”

“Why what?”

Piercing green eyes meet mine. “Why don’t you do relationships?”

My stomach clenches as the past presses into me. “Because they don’t last.” That’s it. I don’t add anything else.

She watches me, something shifting in her expression. Not pity. Not sympathy. Just… recognition. “That’s not the only reason.”

Leave it to Ruby to call me on my bullshit. I let out a breath. “No. It’s not.” But I don’t give her more.

She nods like she expected that. “I don’t do them either.”

That pulls my attention back to her. “No?”

“No.” She gnaws on her bottom lip as if she’s trying to decide what to say if I press the issue.

“Why?” I should let it go. It doesn’t matter. I have my reasons for not believing in relationships, so her reason shouldn’t matter. But it does.

She exhales. “Because everything comes with expectations. And expectations turn into things you can’t control.” Her voice dips before steadying again. “And because…” She pauses, then meets my eyes. “Pregnancy terrifies me, which tends to be something expected in committed relationships.”

The explanation sits there. I don’t react. Don’t push. Just let it be what it is. Even though it was the last thing I expected to hear from her.

“So my reason is like yours. People don’t stay.”

She’s right. People don’t stay. And they rarely look back to consider the damage they’ve left in their wake. We sit there in it. Not fixing it. Not arguing it. Just… understanding.

“What happened in the kitchen…” I start, then stop. Start again. “That wasn’t nothing.”