That little line of thinking was supposed to make her feel better. Instead, she felt hollow.

“Fine. I was seventeen. Her name was Trisha. In the back seat of her car.”

“Okay. So that’s my point. I thought because I knew about sex that I knew all about it. Because at my age it’s not like... It’s not like being seventeen and the wonders of sex feeling mysterious. I figured I knew. But I didn’t. Because knowing isn’t the same as doing. I understand that suddenly on such a fundamental level that it makes me aware of everything I don’t exactly get. So now I would say no, at seventeen, you wouldn’t handle all that exactly the way you should. You can’t hold yourself responsible for that. The only people you can hold responsible are the adults involved.”

“And if my mom is one of the adults involved?”

“I guess you have to figure out who you are if you’re not rebelling against your dad or pleasing your mom.”

The words were strange, and echoed inside her in an odd manner.

It made her wonder. Who was she? If she wasn’t trying to protect her brothers and her dad from having to worry about her. If she wasn’t living every moment in reaction to a loss she couldn’t even remember.

A loss she kept insisting wasn’t hers to claim, because she hadn’t known her mother. But every moment in her life was shaped by it. Was a reaction to it. And it made her wonder things.

It made her wonder if the Jamie that spent nights with Gabe Dalton, and made him toast and hot chocolate right back, was a lot closer to the woman she would have been if...

No. She didn’t let herself think of that.

There was no point to it. She was who she was. And if she could feel some different things with Gabe sometimes, then that was fine. It didn’t need to be anything else.

“Are you ready for bed?” she asked.

He looked up at her and grinned, looking a whole lot more like the man she thought he was, before she’d actually known him.

“Yeah. For a while. And then I’m going to want steak.”

“I don’t cook steak,” Jamie said.

“I do.”

“You said toast was the extent of your skill.”

“I didn’t want to overwhelm you. I have a few things yet left to show you, Jamie Dodge.”

He spent the rest of the evening showing her a few of those things.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

GABE WAS AVOIDING his father and his mother. If Hank had gone and had a conversation with Tammy after their talk, Gabe hadn’t heard about it. And if there was one thing Hank and Tammy Dalton did not do quietly, it was fight. Hell, they didn’t do anything quietly. So if something had happened, Gabe would have known. His dad’s shit probably would’ve been on fire on the front lawn.

That thought was a strange one, because he’d always thought of his dad as being reckless. Selfish. And everything his mother did was a reaction to that. Which was reasonable. Because his father didn’t deserve to have quarter given to him if he was going to treat his vows so carelessly.