Tucker stayed, but he picked me up off the floor and tucked me into bed, then crawled in beside me. He pulled me close, hugging me so that my back curled up into his front as he ran his hands through my hair. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Mina,” he murmured.

I hated when people felt sorry for me. I didn’t want that. “What those assholes did, it’s inexcusable. They should have all been punished. God, I wish you had made sure they all got what they deserved. None of them should have been able to walk away from something like that without the world knowing that they took part.”

“I didn’t want the world to know. It’s bad enough that all of them saw, they watched, or they helped, or just laughed. There were already so many.”

“I get it, but damn it, it’s not right that they got a pass because they play football.”

“They have to live with who they are,” I argued. “They didn’t get a pass.”

“Yeah, well some people can live with being giant dickbags.” He sighed then and pulled me closer. “I’m so sorry you got dragged into my shit on top of everything else, Mina. Is that why you agreed to it?”

“Partly,” I admitted.

“What was the other reason?” When I didn’t answer he gently squeezed me and then kissed the top of my head. “I don’t want what I walked in on tonight to ever happen to you again. So, let’s get everything on the table and be completely honest with one another, okay?”

“Fine,” I agreed. As long as I didn’t have to look at him when I admitted to my issues, then what did it matter? He had already seen the ugly side of me anyway. “Carlos,” I started.

“Wes told me more about him,” he admitted.

“He told you about the café?”

“He told me about meeting Carlos, but I want you to tell me why he factored into you agreeing to marry me.”

So, I explained about Carlos, Charlotte, and how Carlos had been afraid to end our arrangement because he thought I wouldn’t keep tutoring him. As humiliating as it was to admit that, nothing really trumped the shit that had already happened to me, or that Tucker had already seen for himself, so what was the point in hiding it now?

“So, a man who you had been intimate with for more than six months, told you that he was only in it so you wouldn’t stop tutoring him, and you decided that was a good reason to get married to me?”

I shook my head and knew he could feel the subtle movement. “Carlos was the closest thing I had to a friend since,” I didn’t need to say it. He would understand that not having friends stemmed from the what I went through that night during my Freshman year. “Anyway, finding out that he was basically using me brought back a lot of memories, and a lot of reasons why I didn’t trust people. The honest truth is that I married you so that I could never be fooled again. I knew what I was getting with you. I knew you didn’t want me, that you’d never be faithful, but you were safe in a different way because as long as I was attached to you – no one else could get close and use me, hurt me, or humiliate me ever again.”