“Yeah. She was my only real serious relationship. We lived together for a while. Our relationship was so bumpy and fucked up, I wasn’t real eager to get into another mess like that once I got away. Then I guess I was, but I realized other girls weren’t like Mia and it became a whole different problem.”
“What was so special about her?” Carly asks.
“It’s hard to explain.” I already feel like I shared more than I should have, but her asking about Mia makes me clam right up. I don’t know why, but I don’t want to think about Mia right now. I don’t want to invite even her memory into my relationship with Carly.
Relationship is the wrong word. I promptly ruffle at that thought—relationship isn’t what I meant. We’re friends, that’s all. Not even friends, just friendly. Neighborly. We’re neighborly.
As if to call bullshit on thoughts she can’t hear, Carly dips down to whisper in my ear, “Guess what?”
Her warm breath and her playful voice in my ear combined with her hands still working my shoulders turn me into a ball of arousal. “Hm?” I murmur, since it’s about all I can get out.
“I’m not an idiot. I can grasp the complicated.”
“Why do you want to know about her?”
Her hands stop and she wraps her arms around my neck, leaning her head on my shoulder. “You’re still hung up on her,” she states. “I want to know what makes this chick so goddamn special that after years and two exiles from your own home, you still get riled by the scent of her shampoo.”
I scowl at her, unclasping her arms from around my neck and leaning forward to get her off me. “I don’t get riled by the scent of her shampoo.”
“I call bullshit,” Carly states, taking a seat in the chair next to me. “You’ve never wanted to fuck me as badly as you did that night.”
My eyes widen. “You were practically naked. You weren’t wearing panties, and—” I cut myself off, shaking my head. “It doesn’t matter. I told you, I don’t want a relationship. It has nothing to do with Mia. I’m not hung up on her.”
“All right,” she says, too easily. I can see she doesn’t buy it, but she doesn’t want to push. “So, how did exile number two happen?”
Five minutes ago I didn’t want to tell her because I didn’t want to scare her off, but right now I feel like doing just that. “I kidnapped her. Dragged her halfway across the country and hid her from him.” Even though I tell myself I want to scare her off, I stop short of admitting anything more.
That should be enough, but since Carly apparently studied at the Mia Mitchell School of Common Sense, my admission that I kidnapped the last girl I loved doesn’t send her running for the door. Her gaze drops to the table, but she doesn’t retreat.
“Sounds intense,” she says, after a moment. “You must have been in a lot of pain to do something so drastic.”
That’s about the last fucking thing I expect her to say.
“Are you fucking cracked?”
Her eyebrows shoot up in response to that. “Excuse me?”
“I just told you I fucking kidnapped someone.”
“I’ve done stupid things, too. Not that, but…” She shakes her head, watching as I push back my chair and abruptly stand. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing? What is this? No sane person reacts to shit the way you do. I’m a dick to you, you bring me fucking turkey baskets. I break into your house, you parade around the living room half-naked and talk about break-in fantasies. I tell you I kidnapped a person, you sit at my kitchen table and say, ‘oh, well, you must have been in a lot of pain to do that.’ What is that? That’s not fucking normal.”
Shrugging as if at a loss for how to respond to any of this, she says, “I don’t know, Vince. I’m just trying to understand you. There’s no manual that can adequately prepare me for you. I’m doing my best, all right? What would you have me say? Bad Vince? Should I slap you on the wrist? I mean, I could leave, but you can easily get into my apartment, so that’s not very fucking effective anyway, is it? You tell me what the right response is, if I’m getting it so wrong.”
“You should…” I jut a hand in the air, but I’m at a loss, too. “I don’t know, be fucking horrified. I’ve done horrible shit. Just terrible, awful, no good shit. I’m not a good person, Carly. You should leave. You should extract yourself from whatever the fuck this is and run, that’s what you should do. I just told you I kidnapped the last woman who didn’t want me, for fuck’s sake. What if you change your mind?”