Page 60 of Entangled
“OK, I’m leaving.” I slowly climb to my feet and back away from her, then snatch my jacket and pull it on. She doesn’t even look at me as I step into my boots. “I’ll, uh, talk to you later, I guess.”
Rowan sits in stony silence with her back to me. No goodbye, no nothing. Her dismissal rips the scabs from my old wounds. I pull the door open and step outside, pausing in hopes she’ll come running.
She doesn’t.
My heart cracks down the center as I trudge through the melting snow to my truck. This is what happens when I let hope in. The darkness returns with a vengeance.
I drive home on autopilot. Austin’s car is in his driveway. It’s weird he’d be here so close to Christmas. Without thinking I park behind him and go to his door. I should leave the poor guy alone, but that would meanbeingalone.
I knock and look into the hidden camera, so he knows it’s me.
He pulls the door open a few moments later. “Hey, man. You OK?”
“Not really. You got a minute?”
“Of course.” He steps aside and holds the door for me, then secures it behind us. “Talk to me.”
“I fucked things up.”
“You mean with Rowan?”
“Yeah.” I plop onto his couch. “She kicked me out.”
“Damn.” He grimaces. “Want a beer?”
“Please.”
“Be right back.” He heads into the kitchen, then returns with two bottles of beer and cracks them open. He hands one to me. “So, were you an asshole or something?”
“The opposite, actually.” I quickly fill him in on my plan and Rowan’s reaction—well, overreaction—to it.
Like always, Austin listens without judgment, simply nodding now and then.
“You know what I think?” he says, once I finish my story. “I think y’all are movin’ too fast.”
“We’ve already slept together, dude. I didn’t think a date would be such a big deal.”
“Right, but she hasn’t left the house in fifteen years. You two have only known each other for like two weeks. You can’t expect her to change overnight.”
He makes a valid point.
I take a long pull of my beer. “But she won’t even tell me why.”
“She doesn’t owe you an explanation.” Austin eyes me thoughtfully. “Tell me, how many people—outside of the Marines—know what happened to you overseas?”
“Maybe five or six.” My parents, Dahlia, Chelsea, Austin, and now, Rowan.
“When people ask for details, you shut them down, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, why should she be any different? Whatever she went through, and I’m guessing it has plenty to do with her mama’s death, was enough to make her a recluse. She’s not a crusty old guy with nothin’ but his money to talk to. She’s a young, vibrant woman. I’m sure she had a life, friends, before it all went down. For her to shut herself away from the world like that, it had to be really bad. She ain’t ready to talk about it. You gotta respect that.” He pats my shoulder. “It took Katie three years to tell me about her childhood.”
I nod as his words slowly sink in. “But I told her everything.”
“Only because she witnessed you havin’ a nightmare. And you broke a bunch of her shit.”
“Well, yeah.”
