“And, to make it worse, he keeps saying he didn’t sleep with her.”

“Like it matters.”

“Exactly. Anyhow, for a lot of really important political reasons, I have to marry him, but Brodie, I can’t—I won’t.”

“You love him?”

“Before all this happened, I would have said I did. I felt…affection for him. He was my best friend. But, now that I’m away, I can see it wasn’t romantic love at all.”

“You’re not hot for him?”

She shook her head. “But I only figured that out after I met you.”

Slowly, he turned to look at her with an expression that said, Does that mean what I think it means?

“You do things to me I’ve never felt before, and it makes me see that I never got all fizzy for him. Not the way I do for you.” Her hand slapped over her mouth. “I prolly shouldn’t have said that.”

“Nah, it’s understandable. What’s not to like?”

She laughed. “You make everything so easy. Which is funny, since my first impression of you was the opposite. You looked all mean and gruff.”

“I am mean and gruff, but I seem to have a soft spot for you.” When her eyes got all hot and her lips parted, he knew he had to shut it down. Not going there. “I might come off that way because I don’t get too invested in shit. I don’t want people telling me the stories of their lives.”

“Yeah, you told me.”

“Told you what?”

“That you don’t follow through on things.”

“That’s got nothing to do with getting involved in people’s troubles.”

“Are you joking? It has everything to do with it. If they open up to you, you’re going to get emotionally involved, and once that happens, you’re invested. And then, when things don’t work out, you’re going to be destroyed.”

“Well, that escalated pretty fast. Trust me, nothing can destroy me.” Well, except his dad dying. But other than that…oh. Well, yeah, his mom not coming back to Calamity…that had sucked pretty hard.

“Like, I had this huge, lifelong expectation that I’d marry Marcel. I’d invested everything in that relationship, in our future together, and when it exploded in my face, it hurt. You expected to win a gold medal, and it was taken from you. It would make sense that you wouldn’t put yourself out there anymore.”

“All right, Tequila Queen. I don’t know who told you about the Olympics, but it didn’t scar me. It was an old injury that acted up. I missed my shot. Simple as that.”