“I want you to be someone else,” I blurted.

He blinked before he smiled, his body faintly shaking, his smiling lips muttering, “And she knows just how to gut a guy.”

“Someone I can trust,” I explained.

His humor instantly fled.

“In fact,” I went on ridiculously and definitely stupidly, “it’d be good if there was a single fucking person on this godforsaken planet I could trust.”

Knowing that was ridiculous and stupid, but it feeling good to get out anyway, I decided that was enough and it was time to go home.

So I pushed up and twisted around to exit the bed.

As I was learning with Nick, I shouldn’t have wasted the effort. If I dropped a bomb like that, he’d not let it go and make it so I couldn’t either.

So it was not a surprise I found myself on my back, more tangled in the sheets, now hopelessly so, and if that wasn’t enough, a good deal of his weight was bearing down on me.

“You okay?” he asked.

I looked up at him and I did it hard, searching, trying to find anything, absolutely anything that would tell me where he was at, really at, with me.

But all I could see was marginal concern, the rest he held hidden.

Which told me where he was at with me.

Which was precisely where I was at with him.

And lastly, it was exactly where we’d always be.

I was never okay but that wasn’t for then or ever, for him or anyone. It was just what it was and it was all for me.

So I weighed my words and gave him what I thought was safe.

“It’s just that I learned some interesting things today which could lead to good or it could…” I shrugged, “not.”

“Let me guess, Olivia Shade is not an optimist,” he remarked.

I almost smiled.

Instead I confirmed, “My glass has always been half empty. That is, when there was anything in the damned thing at all.”

I watched his features at war again, definite concern and also curiosity, those along with what appeared to be a hint of unease.

But he settled into the concern.

“Wanna make a deal?” he asked quietly.

I felt my neck muscles tense as I felt us shift to dangerous ground.

“Sebring,” was all I said.