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She nudged him with her arm. “Stop.”
“Remember that night you stayed up late to talk to me? That night at Dez and Larke’s.”
“After Sydney’s date?”
“Yeah.” He ran his fingers through his hair, amazed at how thinking about it still hurt, though a little less than it did back then. “That night was…hard. I mean, I’ve never had those thoughts before. I’ve been depressed, but to think about…ending my life?”
“Joel, what you do in this world isn’t easy.”
“I expected to be mentally tougher than that.”
“Because you can shoot a gun?” she asked. “Because you save lives? Do you know what the difference is? When someone shoots a gun at you, nine times out of ten, they were always your adversary. They’re trying to injure your body. When it’s someone you love, that bullet goes past the soft tissue and lodges itself into the core of you.”
“Why’d you stay up with me?”
“Joel,” her brows softened, “why wouldn’t I?”
“You’re right.” He nodded. “It’s what you do.”
“So, without my training, I wouldn’t have?”
“Is that what that sounded like to you? Are you doing that thing where you flip my words so I hear what I’m actually saying underneath what came out of my mouth?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“So why’d you stay up with me, then?” he asked. “We barely knew each other back then.”
“You’re still worth my time, Joel.”
He stuffed down a ball of emotion bigger than his head.
“And look at where we are now,” she went on.
He released a dry laugh. “Yeah, look at where we are, me taking jabs at you using your husband because I’m immature as fuck.”
“You’re right. That was immature.”
He looked down, hiding a grin.
“You’re not like that with the others,” she pointed out. “When someone tells you that you’ve done something wrong, you accept it. Even during your arguments with Sydney, the way you’ve explained it to me, it was always you saying you’re hurt, but in a way that she didn’t feel hurt by you saying it. Yet, with me, you went straight for the dead husband.”
“I…don’t know. I’ve thought about it, and there’s something about you that gets under my skin.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“Don’t be sorry that I get under your skin? You know what else burrows into skin? Ticks.”
“Then,” he shrugged, “infect me, Mrs. Savea.”
She shoved his arm.
He barely moved.
With Sydney, he argued to avoid putting distance, or any further distance, between them. He argued with reconciliation in mind. Even with the guys, when he fucked up, he never considered saying it was the opposite. As a child, it was likely why his parents had called him “the peacekeeper.”
Yet, with Ayesha, he struck out.
