“Abbi,” he said very quietly. “I can’t be what you want.”
“How do you know what I want?” she snapped.
He closed his eyes for a second, his lips pressed tightly together. “You deserve better than what I can give you.”
“Oh please,” she scoffed. “You deserve better than what you let yourself have.”
His eyes flashed open. “What—”
“You run away,” she interrupted. “You run from everything first, don’t you? That way it’s within your control. You reject. You avoid.” She got it now, so clearly. “So you’re not rejected.”
“Maybe I’ve had enough rejection in my life,” he ground out.
But he didn’t deny it.
“You should reach out,” she rashly pressed on despite the fury she saw lighting his eyes. “You should call your sister. Your old team…cutting them out can only hurt. Them and you.”
He shook his head.
Suddenly her heartache wasn’t for herself. But for him. “You could have it all, Joe.” He really, really could. And he should. “Look, I know you don’t want that with me, or anyone yet. But one day you’ll walk past some woman with whom you should have it all. And you won’t be able to. Because you’re still too scared. You run away from anything that might require a real emotional commitment. You’ve been hurt, I get that. But you’re always going to be searching. Always going to be unsatisfied. Because unless you fight you’re never going to find it.”
“You think I didn’t fight? You think I didn’t try my damnedest?” He squared up to her. One naked, angry man.
“Not for this…you just avoid it. Your sister. Your past.” It was such a shame. So needless. “You think ‘everyone is better off’ without you—that’s your line. But the fact is you’re a coward. You’re too scared to let anyone in.”
“Analysis, Dr. Abbi?” he shouted scathingly. “I never wanted you to analyze me. You think you’re so fucking smart? You can’t even sort your own issues out. You’re so insecure you need sex instruction?”
No. She was not going to let him take it out on her and tear her up. “Yeah, I was that insecure.” She swiped away a tear that had spilled. “But now I know that with the right guy, sex can be great. So thanks for helping me. I’m only sorry I can’t help you.”
Because he was the right guy; he was absolutely the right guy for her.
“I don’t want your help,” he snapped. “And I sure as shit don’t want your pity.”
Yeah, there it was. She wasn’t the right woman for him. If she was, he’d know it wasn’t pity she felt. But the kind of concern and caring that only came with love.
He was viciously angry. She could see his fists clenched tightly, shaking down by his sides. But she wasn’t scared for her safety—not physically, anyway.
Ignoring his nudity, he stalked to the door and flung it open. Stood beside it pointedly.
Sick to her stomach, she slowly walked toward it.
“I can’t do this, Abbi,” he said, staring at the floor. “I don’t want this. I don’t want you.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Be spontaneous. Daring.”
For hours and hours Joe couldn’t stop the words replaying in his head. His own stupid lies. The harsh truths Abbi had spat at him. The long-buried memory of his mom.
Better off without me…
That damn cliché was what his mom had said when she’d left him and his sister with the child welfare authority. As an adult, he knew that it had been the frustrated, off-the-cuff comment from a desperate woman who couldn’t cope as a mother. He knew, on one level, that it wasn’t true. Her leaving wasn’t his fault. He was a grown man, for heaven’s sake. But that five-year-old was still buried within him. Still hurt. Still twisting those words so they came from him—that she’d been better off without him.
You deserve better than what you let yourself have…
Abbi’s words haunted him more. She thought he’d been denying himself? Is that what he’d been doing? Didn’t he have it all? Didn’t he have everything he could ever want? Wasn’t he more successful than anyone had ever imagined he could be?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
And yet. There was that underlying fear that pushed him to achieve more and more. Because what if he didn’t achieve? What if he failed?
He couldn’t trust that anyone would still want him if he stuffed up. His own mother hadn’t wanted him whether he screwed up or not. No foster family had either, not for long. His sister hadn’t—not enough to turn to him when she’d most needed help. He hadn’t risked his teammates. He’d made that choice for them.