I felt my head twitch, now more confused.

“I…I don’t get it.” I shook my head. “I mean, yes. Of course. I want you to be happy. Though, I don’t get—”

“But you don’t intend to do it,” he repeated.

At what I thought he was saying, my heart twisted and I had to curl my fingers into his shirt at his chest to help support me.

“Sorry?” I breathed.

“You don’t intend to do it.”

I let him go in order to shift away.

Nick’s fingers went from my hips and his arms rounded me.

Tight.

Slamming me into his body.

“Sebring—”

He bent his face close to mine and barked, “Nick,” so fiercely I winced.

I tensed as I asked, “What’s happening?”

“Got your painting, Olivia. Got your note,” he explained but it didn’t explain anything. “You want me to be happy. But you don’t intend to do it.”

I didn’t intend to do it.

He was right; I didn’t intend to do it.

What he would never know was that I’d die and kill to have the privilege of making him happy.

It just wasn’t an ability life afforded me.

“We both know I can’t be that for you,” I reminded him.

“Yeah,” he bit out like he had to expel the word because it tasted beyond foul. “What you know that I don’t is that you can’t be that for anybody.”

I went completely still.

“Can you?” he clipped but didn’t wait for my answer. “You can’t be that for anybody.”

“Sebring—”

His arms gave me a squeeze. “Nick.”

I shook my head. “Why are we—?”

“Good question, Olivia. Why? Why can’t you be that for anybody? Why can’t you be happy?”

We hadn’t been together for weeks.

How had he figured so much of this out?

I cautiously tried to pull away.

His arms got tight and this time they didn’t loosen.

I stopped trying to pull away.

“We’re rewinding,” he decreed. “I know why you can’t be that for me. I know why I can’t share why you can’t be that for me. What I wanna know is why you think you can’t be that for me.”

“You can’t share and I get that. You have to get why I can’t share.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You have to.”

He bent close to me. “Your father is a piece of shit. Planet’d be better if he was obliterated from it. Not sure about your sister, but thinkin’ she’s much the same. Know you got soldiers who deserve a bed in the dirt.”

At his words, I wrenched in his arms but he held fast.

I again went still and kept my hands between us to give as much distance as he would afford me.