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“Apology accepted,” I grumbled. “And I’m sorry about Aly. I was a dick, and I know it.”
“Things were going so well,” he complained. “What happened?”
I paused, wondering if I should open up to him. I considered Porter a friend, and he was almost family, a blood relative of my baby nephew. “I saw her looking at me when I was holding Seth.”
“So?” Porter shifted nervously, his energy dark and confused.
“She wants a baby. She wants a house and a husband and the whole nine yards.”
“Did she say that to you?” Porter challenged.
“She didn’t have to,” I said. “I read it in her eyes.”
“And that’s why you dumped her?” Porter cried, overwhelmed with disgust for my choice.
“I didn’t dump her,” I protested.
“That’s what she said.”
I wanted to make it right, but I knew I had to stay as far away from Aly as possible. I couldn’t trust myself not to do or say something wrong. She was rightly pissed at me. I had made a mess of the whole thing and the best remedy was time.
“When you see her,” I pleaded with Porter, “just tell her I agree, it’s all my fault.”
“That’s not comforting,” Porter replied. “Why couldn’t you just talk to her about how you felt?”
“It’s better to break it off now than two years down the road when she’s too invested,” I argued.
“I think you could have picked a better way,” he said.
“How much did she tell you?” I asked.
“Enough.”
I shook my head in disgust. I was no better than an animal, taking advantage of her one last time before breaking her heart. I deserved all the scorn I knew I was about to receive. I just hoped that Aly would recover soon. Maybe she could burn my picture or skewer me on social media. Whatever she had to do to make herself feel better was all right by me.
22
ALY
Two thoughts kept running through my head no matter where I was. I was angry with Linc, and I was angry at myself for getting involved with him. Other people had tried to warn me. Gina, for example, had made a point of asking me to take a second look at what he was offering, but I had brushed her off. Worse, I had yelled at her.
Porter had warned me too, when he said, “all men are dogs.” I thought he was just exaggerating or being overprotective, but he had been speaking the truth. I remembered that crazy hot moment in the kitchen, leaning over the sink. He had been so aggressive, and I had misinterpreted it to mean that he couldn’t keep his hands off me. In reality, he had been taking one more spin around the block before bailing on me.
It was a last-ditch effort to get some tail when he knew he would be in for a dry spell. That logic was what bothered me most, that he had been so calculating. He could have broken it off before breakfast or before we slept together the night before.
It had been abrupt, and I was ashamed. I wondered what I had done to deserve this treatment. I thought things were going well.He had accepted another invitation to Gina’s house, and we had been each other’s steady lunch date for almost a month. There wasn’t any warning before he ripped my heart out and stomped on it. Being used so carelessly only moments before the agony was the final straw. I didn’t care if I ever saw him again.
Luckily, we didn’t run into each other at work. I was in the office and he was in the barn or out on deliveries. I deleted his contact from my phone and the text thread, as well as the two selfies we had taken together. It was Friday, and I was determined not to spend the night thinking about Linc at all.
I called Gina on my lunch break to fill her in. “Linc broke up with me.”
“What?” Her voice broke. “When?”
“This morning, before I drove him to work.” I wanted to get the whole story out before I lost my nerve.
“Slow down,” she said. “You drove him to work?”
“He spent the night at my place.”
