“You don’t... You don’t get to do that to me,” she said. “You don’t... That’s not what you’re for.”

“You suggested we have a baby together, and you’re very anti–turkey baster, Sammy, so how did you think we were going to accomplish that? Are you going to treat me like a prostitute? No kissing on the mouth. And were you going to lie there and think of England the whole time and make sure that you didn’t enjoy it?”

“I didn’t enjoy that,” she said. Her breath was coming in short, harsh bursts. “And I didn’t think it through. It was about you, who you are, not about us sleeping together. And now... It’s not even about who you are.”

“Oh, so now that I decided to make you face up to what it is you actually wanted to do you’ve decided you don’t like me very much anymore?”

“What does that mean?”

“You know full well what it means. I made you face the reality of your plan. What it meant. You’re the one that asked me if I’d be the father of your baby. And now you’re acting like me introducing a kiss was a violation? What do you think would have happened? What do you think any of this entails? You’re angry because you want your dream to stay frothy and cloudy and nothing that you have to figure out the logistics for. I’m sorry I brought it back down to earth, babe, but eventually it’s going to land there, and you’re not going to like it. And it isn’t going to be my problem.”

“It won’t be,” she said. “I’m going to make sure it isn’t. I’ll go out and deal with it myself and you’re absolved. Just go away.”

“You’re the one who’d have to go away, darlin’. I’ll be right here where I’ve always been.”

“Hanging out making Joan of Arc look like a self-preservationist with a selfish streak?”

Her words were sharp and they cut deep. “What?”

“You’re a martyr, Ryder. Don’t pretend you aren’t. Don’t you think I know what this is all about? It’s not about me. It’s about you. From your offers of marriage to that kiss. It’s about you wanting—needing—to be the one to miserably sacrifice and fix me, and excuse me if I don’t want it.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“It’s what your life is,” she said, the words uncompromising.

Sammy was often shocking, but she wasn’t usually uncompromising, and she was never mean.

But she was pretty mean right about now.

“Why are you still here? Why did you never leave? Because you were going to, you told me that. Before your parents died you were going to follow your football scholarship to college and get a degree. Major in engineering. Figure out how to make the things that hold the world together. You never did it. You settled right in here and you put on your hair shirt and kept it on even though you don’t need to now. Even though you could change your life at any point. You don’t. You keep yourself busy and you just keep on treating yourself like a beast of burden and why? So at the end of it all you can be the great hero, who never had to try and fail at living his own damn life.” Blue eyes blazed into his, scorching his soul.