It didn’t matter how angry he was, he respected my wishes and excused himself. That didn’t stop him from trying, from hoping that night would be different, but when it wasn’t, he listened.

I didn’t understand how he could be two men. When we were home, he was Fender. When we were at the camp, he was the boss. Different personalities. Different hostilities. Different everything.

When he came into my living room that night, I was finally ready.

The space had been necessary, but once it went on for too long, I started to miss him. I closed the book and set it on the end table beside me before I looked up at him.

The anger slowly left his face when he realized he wouldn’t be asked to leave. He moved to the couch across from me, his forearms on his knees, and he leaned forward as he stared at me. “I told you I don’t sleep with people—”

“Why?”

He clenched his jaw at the interruption. “The only reason I’m allowing you to talk to me this way is because—”

“What?” I purposely interrupted him just to press his buttons.

He shook his head and clenched his jaw, keeping his rage restrained. He dropped his eyes and stared at his hands, rubbing them together slightly as he let the seconds trickle by, as he let his anger fade before he spoke. “Because you’re the only person who’s allowed to speak to me this way.” He lifted his chin and looked at me again, still angry, but substantially less.

“Answer my question.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re still upset about that? Because I didn’t let you sleep with me—”

“What kind of man are you?”

His face flushed with anger at being interrupted again, but he didn’t interrupt me. He didn’t want to risk being ordered to leave, and watching him cooperate despite the way I treated him showed how much I really meant to him.

“Your woman is having a panic attack because she’s back in the very place where she was held prisoner, and you do nothing? I needed you, and you weren’t there for me. Because of what? You just don’t like sleeping with people? I’m not people, Fender.”

“I never offer to take you with me for that very reason.” He didn’t raise his voice. He stayed calm, because he wanted to resolve this, to get me back into his bed so he could kiss me and make love to me. “You wanted to come.”

“You locked the fucking door—like I’m an animal.”

He rubbed his hands together again and didn’t refute that.

“I barely slept the entire time we were there.”

“You. Wanted. To. Come.”