Page 11

“What could possibly ruin anything about you?” Okay, so it sounded sappy as hell, but I didn’t care. I’d been so rough around the edges with her since the beginning—I was trying to show that I could loosen up a bit.

Allie took a preparing breath, closing her eyes before she spoke. “It’s hard to say this, because I feel like—no—I know... I’m broken, Truman. I’ve known it since I was very young. If you go into this thinking that I’ll always be ready to jump into bed... that’s not me at all. It hasn’t ever been me. While I can acknowledge when someone is good-looking, I’ve never been the girl that got crazy crushes on anyone. I don’t crave physical intimacy outside of maybe some handholding, hugs, and kisses.”

The more she talked, the more her eyes welled up with tears. I couldn’t just stand there and let her fall apart as she let me in on the most secret parts of herself.

“Oh, Allie,” I said as I wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “There’s nothing broken about you.”

Chapter 9

Allie

It wasn’t until that moment that I realized just how much I needed to hear someone else say it.

“You’re not broken.”

I could play it over and over in my head and read it a million and two times online, but it didn’t sink in until someone else spoke the words into reality. It was still hard to believe. The media made sex out to be such an important part of life, and if you didn’t want those things, something was wrong with you. So many of my exes had made it out to be that something was very wrong with me. That I wasn’t meeting their needs.

In the end, were they meeting mine?

I threw my arms around Truman’s neck. Everything in me screamed that I could trust him. He wasn’t the same as everyone in my past who said they could deal with it and ultimately couldn’t. He had so much patience with the dogs, that took a very special kind of person. Maybe I’d been meant to land in Maple Lane Falls all along, to find the grumpy man in charge of the animal shelter, to find out what made his heart tick.

“Allie?”

His question was soft, making me pull away to look at his face. Truman had a smile across his lips, it made me want to kiss him all over again. So that was what I did, placing a quick peck against his lips before pulling away.

“I don’t think you realize how much I needed to hear that.”

“Thank you,” was all Truman said as he brushed more hair behind my ear before placing another gentle kiss against my lips. “I can’t imagine how scary it is to tell someone something like that.”

He really had no idea, but I was thankful that he hadn’t made me feel bad about it. We stood there a little longer in the dark room with Truman’s arms around me. He occasionally placed soft kisses against my hair. It was so strange how quickly he went from being so guarded, grumpy, and all around hostile around me to comforting me the way he was.

“Can I walk you home?” he asked when we finally pulled apart. I gave him a soft smile.

“I’d really like that.”

Truman disappeared into the back room for a moment before coming back to my side, explaining that he needed to make sure he’d secured all the kennels. “One time, I’d forgotten to check, it turned into an organized crime. One broke out, letting the other dogs out. When I came in the next morning, there were dogs everywhere. They’d gotten into my stash of dog food and ate almost all of it. That was hard because the stuff I buy them isn’t the cheapest, so we had to ration for a while until I could buy some more.”

I could listen to him tell me stories about the dogs all day. Truman’s fingers laced through mine as we walked down the sidewalk toward my apartment. Several people stopped to stare at us, but he didn’t seem to let it bother him at all. For a guy who didn’t do relationships, there were bound to be rumors of us being together flying by morning. If I’d learned anything in my short time in this town, people noticed things and people talked.

By the time we made it back to my apartment, my face hurt from how hard I’d been laughing. For as serious as Truman was, he had some good jokes, it worked to take my mind off how heavy things had gotten back at the shelter. I wasn’t thinking about opening up about my asexuality anymore. Though now a new set of nerves was setting in. He’d walked me home. This was often when men expected something, wasn’t it?

Truman leaned in close. I met him halfway, placing a kiss against his lips. His arms wrapped around me, and it was easy to forget that we were standing in the middle of the sidewalk where anyone could see us. He had a strange way of settling me, making me forget.

When we pulled apart this time I was shaking.

“Are you okay?”

God, he was so sweet for asking.

“Yeah. I’m more than okay. Thank you again for tonight. I loved seeing the dogs and getting the chance to get to know you better.”

The smile that spread across his face was shy but handsome. I wanted to make him smile like that more often.

That was when it happened. The one thing I didn’t expect. It was where so many men had let me down in the past.

Truman gave my hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it and walking in the opposite direction. There was no pressure to let him in. For more to happen. He took what I said to heart, realizing that it wasn’t something I was interested in.

Warmth spread through my chest because I could get used to someone treating me with a little respect.