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I didn’t bother mentioning that Rowdy had cameras all through this house. Something he had installedafterI moved in. No doubt to keep an eye on me with his stalking ass.
“So, what do you want, Ruen? You already apologized.”
“But you haven’t forgiven me.”
I bit off half a brownie, chewed, thought about it, and said, “If I say I forgive you, will you go away?”
“Mmmm…probably not since I won’t believe you.” She stared at me while I ignored her. “Are you seriously telling me you wouldn’t have found your way back to him anyway?”
“I’m not telling you shit. You’re the one talking.”
Ruen sighed heavily as if I was the one being unreasonable. “I fucked up, Atlas, but I’m still your friend.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. It’s just that…the guys are family. Besides Rem, they were all I had for a long time. It’s second nature to ride or die for them. I don’t know anything else. I’m not making excuses,” she rushed to add. “There’s no excuse for what I did. I just—I don’t want you to think it was easy for me to give you up.”
She held my gaze, letting me see the sincerity in it, but since I wasn’t ready to forgive the bitch, I grabbed my plate and glass before leaving the kitchen and returning to the living room.
Ruen followed me from the kitchen and sat down next to me on the couch. Giving up on psych for the time, I grabbed one of my biology textbooks. “If I thought for a second that you wouldn’t be safe with him, you know I wouldn’t have done it.”
Still not looking at her, I flipped a page. “Is that why you stuck around to listen to us fuck?”
Ruen smiled a little. “Maybe. Mostly, I liked the way you sound when you’re being fucked. And I might have been a little jealous that it wasn’t me in there with you.”
“Ruen,” I warned.
She held up her hands in mock surrender. “I know, okay? You’re not into me.”
I cut my gaze at her but chose not to remark on it. Ruen had chosen her words carefully. No, I wasn’t into girls, but she knew I had been into her.
I was reading the same sentence for the fifth time when she spoke again.
“What’s all this?” My stomach sank when I looked up and caught her lifting the paternity kit from the table. “Trouble in paradise?”
“Would that make your day if I said yes?”
“No. I meant what I said earlier. You’re my friend, Atlas, so your happiness is more important to me than anything I might want from you.”
“Okay.”
“Talk to me. I can tell you’re hurting, and I’m guessing whatever it is, you can’t talk to Rowdy about it.”
I sucked in a deep breath when it felt like I might actually cave and tell her everything. I’d be a fool to after I trusted her once, and she betrayed me at the first opportunity.
Was it a coincidence that all my relationships seemed to end the same way? Sutton, Sienna, my parents—birth and actual—Ruen, and now Rowdy.
I didn’t think so.
Maybe I was the problem. Maybe I expected too much of people.
“Thanks, but I’m okay,” I lied without any malice or bitterness. A part of me had declined her ear because I just didn’t have the energy to rehash everything. I was exhausted, and not just physically.
“There are three kits here,” Ruen said, refusing to let it go.
I sighed. “Yup.”
“But you haven’t collected all of the samples.”
