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Killian shrugs. “He might have. Some guys take what they have for granted, and it takes a wake-up call to snap them out of it.”
“Maybe. But I want a guy with enough awareness and intelligence to know what he has the moment he catches me. It shouldn’t take fucking me over for him to see my value. And if it does, honestly, it’s too late. I don’t want him anymore, so… relationship over.”
“That’s fair. He made his bed.”
I nod, searching the cabinets for cereal so I can add mine to it. “But since I hung out in that doomed relationship for the rest of my high school career, refusing to end it and maybe find someone better, but also refusing to sleep with him…”
“You entered college a virgin.”
“Yep.”
“You’re a sophomore, though, right?”
“Yeah, but I was pretty closed off to dating last year. Freshly broken heart and all that. I take a while to mend.”
“Especially when you don’t heed conventional advice.”
“Which is?”
He sounds faintly amused. “Fastest way to get over one guy is to get under a different one.”
“Oh.” My cheeks warm a bit. “Yeah, obviously I didn’t take that advice. What about you?” I ask, glancing back at him. “Have you ever been in love before?”
“Nah. It’s not really for me.”
My eyebrows rise. “Love?” I ask, laughing a little without meaning to. “Love is for everybody. It’s part of the human experience.”
His lips tug up wryly. “So is dying, and I’m not in a hurry to do that anytime soon.”
“Wow. Comparing falling in love to death. Child of divorce?” I guess.
“Yep.”
I nod knowingly. “That can put a bad taste in your mouth. I am too, but my parents split when I was young and my dad moved away, so I didn’t have warring parents or anything like that.”
“My mom—who is a legend, to be fair—found out my dad was fucking around with a co-worker, so she quietly started preparing for the divorce and fucking his boss. The guy couldn’t help falling for her, so when she surprised my dad with divorce papers, she already had herself a nice place to land. She told Dad he could keep the house because she didn’t need it anymore. We moved into her new boyfriend’s big-ass mansion before the ink was even dry on the divorce papers.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“That is legend behavior.”
He nods. “My dad didn’t appreciate being one-upped by the woman he thought he was embarrassing. You should’ve been there the first year they had a company picnic. Dad brought his downgrade and thought Mom would be all put out, but Mom was the life of the party, ignoring him and charming everyone else, all while being extra affectionate with her new man—his boss—while my dad had to watch. He got real bitter about it.”
I shake my head. “Small men never enjoy sleeping in the shitty beds they make for themselves, do they?”
“He’d call her a whore and all this stuff like he wasn’t the one to break his vows in the first place and put her in the position to have to find someone new.” He glances back at me. “My dad’s a dick.”
“He sounds like one,” I say unapologetically. “Do you guys get along now, or…?”
“I see him every now and then, but we’re not close. I don’t respect him.”
I don’t see why he should, but it’s not my place, so I don’t say that. “What about his boss? Did your mom end up staying with him?”
“Oh yeah, he wasn’t a dumbass like my dad. He didn’t need to fuck it all up to see what a catch she was. She married him and had a kid with him. Another son. He’s 14 now.”
I nod, but my thoughts drift to my own younger half-sibling. “Are you guys close?”
