Watch Me Fall(24)

“Baby,” he murmured, and the endearment surprised even him as it slipped from his mouth. “He’s not the only one, okay? There will be someone else for you. But don’t do what I did. Make sure he’s right.”

Jared realized even as he said it that he didn’t like thinking about that hypothetical man. Someone else to hold her, to feel the warmth of her tears when she was sad and the blessing of her smile when she was happy. No. To hell with that. He didn’t know if he could be that person for her. He could try. He wanted to try. But if—God forbid—his own words about letting go of past hurts came back to bite him in the ass, if he destroyed her too, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. But he damn sure didn’t want anyone else getting the chance.





Chapter Twelve



After that embarrassing drunken display, Starla forced herself to remain dead silent on the way to Jared’s house. She felt raw, ripped open, exposed, and she didn’t like it. She, who had become an expert at keeping secrets for so long, had laid it all out there in front of someone who was scarcely more than a stranger to her. If she opened her mouth again, something else horrible and mortifying might pour out, and that scared her more than anything in the world right now.

But that would be good, wouldn’t it? Meet his fucking challenge, since he wanted to know it all. Tell him about the filthy things lurking in her soul, the rotting skeletons in her closet, then maybe he would realize she wasn’t worth his time and take her home.

Only she didn’t want to go home. Ever.

So she kept her mouth shut.

Night had fallen, black and absolute. No moon, no stars. Lightning flickered to the west—another spring storm about to blow in. If a tornado came through and blew her entire world away, she didn’t think she would complain too much. She would run away, make a fresh start somewhere else knowing there was nothing to run back to.

“He’s never going to love you.”

She knew it. She respected it. But Janelle, the only other bearer of the secret, had never flung it in her face so harshly. Janelle had only ever looked at her sympathetically or, at times pityingly—not that Starla often pined out loud about Brian to her friend, but Jan knew her well enough to see when it was eating at her. She knew when Starla couldn’t take one more second of all the bright sunshiney vibes and rainbows and prancing fucking unicorns that illuminated Dermamania whenever the happy couple was about.

What scared Starla far more about Jared’s words was that the he in question would apply not only to Brian Ross, but to every man she ever met who was worth a damn. Like, maybe…the one sitting next to her now, who hadn’t uttered a word himself since they’d left the restaurant. He was probably thinking that if he had any sense, he’d take this fucking basket case home and never bother with her again. Why the hell did he want anything to do with her? He was a gorgeous man who, above all else, had his shit together. He could have his pick of hundreds of girls who had their shit together too. Macy was his ideal, for fuck’s sake. Macy! Rich, educated, well-dressed, perfectly coiffed Macy.

And Macy wanted a guy like Ghost. Jesus, what a tangled web.

“Storm coming in,” Jared commented, finally breaking the silence between them. Until that moment, the only sound had been the gentle roar of the truck’s engine. Even the radio was off. She had no distraction from the chaotic nature of her thoughts. For her, the storm was already here, in her head, in her heart. Her pulse was like thunder in her ears.

“The girls are afraid of thunder,” he went on conversationally, almost as if he were privy to her thoughts. “I always try to tell them it’s not the thunder but the lightning they should be concerned about. I don’t want to scare them, but I want them to respect the danger. They’ll probably be huddled in bed under the blankets tonight.”

“You must miss them so much when they’re gone,” she said, scrounging through her brain and forcing out the first appropriate thing that came to her.

“Oh yeah. I do. I don’t like not being there. Especially when I know they might be afraid.”

For some reason, that made her fucking eyes well up again. “Have you ever…” Her voice strangled on her, but she got it back under control, “…thought about working it out with their mom? For their sake?”

He was silent for a long time. “It really seems like the right thing to do sometimes. Just to see their eyes light up when they have Mom and Dad in the same room together. And it would probably be worth whatever Shelly and I would have to go through, at least for a while. But I don’t want them to wake up some morning and realize that we’re all living the perfect-family lie. I don’t want them to think that’s what they have to do too. I don’t want Shelly to throw away her chance to find someone who loves her the way she deserves. He’d just better love my girls too.”

“Hard not to,” she said, thinking of those bright eyes and excited snaggle-toothed smiles.

Jared’s own white teeth flashed in the darkness as he grinned. “They’re pretty lovable, aren’t they?”

“And you,” she said, tentative. “You deserve to find someone too.”

“It’s never been too high on my list of priorities, you know? I’ve sort of walled myself off.” His voice took an odd turn at the end, sounding almost puzzled, or as if he’d suddenly just worked something out for himself. Maybe he hadn’t even realized he’d been living that way. It was second nature for her.

As she turned that revelation over in her mind, though, a crazy thought occurred to her. Something she had no business asking him about, but suddenly she was insanely curious, and curiosity with alcohol was a dangerous combination. “So you were with Macy for, like, years, right?”

“Since middle school.”

“How old were you when you broke up?”

“I was nineteen. She was eighteen.”

“Did you get with Shelly right away?”

“Pretty much. Maybe a month in between there.”

Was her theory correct? Had this gorgeous man really only been with two women? Assuming he had been completely faithful to both, and she had no doubts he had been, at least physically… Surely not, though. Someone, somewhere had gotten into his pants at some point. A rebound in between, or after his divorce, or something. It was simply too hard to believe he hadn’t nailed a rodeo babe here and there.

From the driver’s seat, he chuckled. “I can sense you’re going somewhere with this.”

“No,” she said too quickly. “Just wondering.”

“The list isn’t extensive,” he said mildly, “but the damage is.”

Starla almost blurted out that she was the exact opposite. Her list was extensive. But the damage was minimal. She’d never been with anyone who could leave such a deep scar on her heart. Brian didn’t count; she’d never been with him.

Jared didn’t want to hear about that, though. Wouldn’t a man like him, who guarded his body as well as his heart, be put off by promiscuity? She’d never, not once, felt shame over her many sexual conquests. She didn’t now, really, it was just weird. As wanton as she was, she didn’t think she’d ever been with a man who’d had fewer partners than her, or at least not enough to make much difference. It had always been a pretty level playing field as far as she knew.

But this… Hell, it would practically be like deflowering a virgin. She had to giggle.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, chuckling with her. And she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Only, um…those two? I’m sorry. You have to admit it’s uncommon.”

“Well,” he said, fidgeting a bit, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand while the other gripped the wheel, “like I said, Macy and I were together from the time we were kids. I thought we’d stay together, get married, have a family, but she ended that. The one and only time I intended to have a one-night stand to forget Macy, I ended up married with twins on the way.”

“Oh,” she said, shamed into silence. She hadn’t looked at it like that.

“Not that Shelly was— She wasn’t a stranger. She was a friend. I liked her, and we got along well back then. But I don’t think I would’ve pursued anything further with her if not for Ash and Mia coming along. It’s sad, but there it is.”

“You gave it a chance,” she said. “It’s more than a lot of guys would do.”

“I never much worried about what other guys would do. Just what I should do.”

“Yeah, well, having sampled my fair share of ‘other guys,’ I’m somewhat of an expert on what most of them would do.” Oh shit, should she have said that, given he was two vaginas removed from virginity? Damn tequila. “I probably shouldn’t admit that, but…” She chuckled and gave his previous words back to him. “There it is.”

He laughed as he flipped the blinker to turn down his road. “You’re all right.”

Was he for fucking real? Kind, crazy about his kids, gorgeous, and nonjudgmental. There had to be some fatal flaw in this system. Had to be. Some switch somewhere that, once thrown, would bring everything crashing down around her.