“Is she really all right?” He had to know.

Zep held both bags in one hand. “She’s sad. I think she thought you were the one. I don’t get that, either. I don’t think there’s some mystical ‘one’ out there, but it’s obvious she thought you were special. I’ve never seen that woman cry. Still haven’t, but I heard her.”

“She cried?” Armie hated the thought that she’d cried. She kept her emotions so private, controlling them always except when she was alone with him.

“I think Lisa convinced her it was okay to. She needed it.” Zep gave him a friendly slap on the arm. “So, there you go, Sheriff. You don’t have to feel bad. She’s cried, and when I left she and Lisa were going out to the patio to have some wine and probably talk about what an asshole you are. She’s already well on her way to moving on. You’re lucky. Lila isn’t the kind to try to cling to a man. She won’t come running to you, begging you to take her back. You caught a break with that one. Got away clean.”

“I wasn’t trying to get away from her.”

A brow rose over Zep’s eye. “So you’re the one who’s going to be clingy?”

“No. I told you. It didn’t work out. I was only trying to explain that I didn’t wake up this morning planning on breaking up with her.”

“Oh, I thought maybe you realized you didn’t like living with her,” Zep commented. “I know you’re, like, an old guy and stuff, and old guys like to settle down. I thought you figured out she wasn’t good at the whole keeping a house thing.”

“I wasn’t interested in her keeping my house.” Though she’d done it far better than he did. He could keep the place clean, but Lila had come in and organized things, kept them to a good schedule so he wasn’t rushing out of the house every morning. She’d started trying to teach Noelle how to cook. Although Noelle had said she couldn’t do it.

It was dangerous. His stove was gas and it wasn’t built for a young woman in a wheelchair. So was she never going to cook? That would be hard. The world wouldn’t change to accommodate her. She would have to adapt. Adaptation was necessary to a good life. He’d had to adapt. Everyone had to adapt.

“Sorry,” Zep said, sounding anything but apologetic. “Didn’t mean to offend. Like I said, I don’t understand this whole romance thing. Sex, I understand, but from the way that woman was crying, I suspect this was about more than sex.”

“Not that this is your business, but we had a disagreement about how to deal with my daughter.”