A thought horrified him. “Don’t tell me you’ve been fakingit.” Reaching back, he gripped the counter’s edge hard, steadying himself, hisabused ego deflating faster than a Mylar balloon nailed by a dart.
“Oh my God!” She threw up her hands, thenpointed an accusing finger. “You just don’t get it, and that’s theproblem. You’re incapable of real intimacy, of loving someone and letting them love you. Want the evidence? We don’t talk.” She begancounting off on her fingers. “About our days, our careers, our futures,anything. You’re going through some heavy shit, but all you do is brood anddrink and put up walls. We’ve been together nine months, and I don’t know athing about your family. The only part of you you’re willing to share is yourbody. And even when we’re screwing, you’re here, but you’re not. I don’t feelconnected to you. You never say anything remotely romantic in bed. Shit, youdon’t say anythingin bed. You don’t even look at me. And cuddling? You’d think it wascomparable to rolling around in poison ivy. We’re missing tenderness thatshould be natural. That’s not how intimate partners behave, T.J. Frankly, Idon’t think you know how to be in a relationship, and I want—no, I deserve—morethan a fuck buddy.” Her voice held a sad edge.
His mind reeling, he had no idea what to say.
She let out a shoulder-dropping sigh. “We’re on two separatepaths that are widening the farther we go, and it’s time to move on.”
Jumbled thoughts came at him, pelting him like he was on thewrong end of a lopsided snowball fight, but nothing stuck long enough for himto study it. Then he flashed on the Chopin bottles, and a thought hammered him.
“Wait. Is this about another guy?”
She focused on a corner of the ceiling. When she lowered hereyes to his, she raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’ve been aone-woman man this entire time. Hot hockey player on the road, women throwingthemselves at you.”
Notreally an answer. Aftershocks, stronger than the original jolt,rippled through him. His hand flew to his hair.
One side of her mouth curled in a smirk. “You should learnto control your tells. You give yourself away too easily.”
“But I didn’t—”
Her hand went up. “Not interested in if you did or didn’t.”She gave him a little shrug.
What.The. Actual. Fuck? “But youobviously did.” His voice had climbed a few octaves, making him sound likesomeone had his nuts in a vise. Someone did—Julia.
Lips pursed, she nodded slowly. “It’s not as if I went outlooking for it. Stuff just sort of … happened, and I met someone. I want tofind out if he and I have a future.”
A hard slam to the gut brought up old, unwelcome shit hewanted to keep buried. Deep. With the memories came a cold rage. His iron gripon the counter was the only thing holding him in place, and he clung to it asthough his life depended upon it.
“So that’s it,” he ground out.
Julia closed the distance, stood on tiptoe, looped her armsaround his neck, and kissed him on the mouth. Her fragrance was strong andspicy, like a runaway plug-in fragrance that saturated the air, and it clashedwith the acid churning in his gut.
“Thanks for everything, T.J.” One hand patted his chest.He’d been dismissed.
With a cursory nod, he pulled her other arm from his neck.Countless times she’d had her hands on him and he’d liked it, but now, not somuch.
She pointed at the bottle on the counter. “No one else Iknow likes Jameson. Let me grab a bag so you can take it with you.” Consolation prize. Sheturned and padded away.
Blowing out a breath, he looked around himself as if he’djust woken up. Shreds of the Jameson label were strewn across the counter. Hescooped them up and depressed the pedal of her step-on garbage can, dusting offhis hands over the open container. A black label caught his eye. Morton’s.One of his favorite restaurants. He peeked at variouscartons. One was marked “Prime Porterhouse,” another “LyonnaisePotatoes.” He skipped the third.
Ten minutes later, flustered and flabbergasted, his ego inpieces, he stood outside her door, nearly laughing out loud that she’d neverfed him her “home-cooked” dinner before tossing him out on his ass. Nor had shetold him where she’d heard about the trade.
A question kept spinning against the backdrop of his mindlike an old forty-five on a goddamn turntable: How in the hell had thishappened?
As he drove away, Julia’s words popped up and bobbed likecorks in his mind. Youjust don’t get it. It was physical. There’s no connection. I found someone. No,he didn’t get it.
Jesus,she cheated on me!
His stomach bunched into knots, and her confession slicedinto his most tender spots as though a prep chef were going to town with awell-honed blade.
Thank God he’d never fallen hard for her—not that hecould’ve anyway. Not Julia or any girlfriend he’d had the past ten years. No,while he’d liked them all and tried his damnedest to treat them well, he hadn’tdeserved any of them.
His relationship with her, like all the others, was anotherpiece of wreckage to chuck into the grab bag of things marked “did not see thatcoming.” Maybe it was time he added “but totally should have” to that label.Maybe he should just play it safe and stop dating completely—he might be aticking time bomb anyway. He could become Beckett-Milleresqueand one-night-stand his way through life. Or maybe forego sex, at least for awhile, as unbearable as that sounded.
With a headshake, he turned on the car’s audio system. Timeto chill out and smarten up with a little ancient Roman history. But instead ofthe podcast he’d been listening to, he landed on a local sports station—andfroze at the sound of his name.
“Well, good riddance. Denver can have T.J. Shanstrom,” some talking head spat.
Another chortled. “He can hang out with Kevin May while hewaits out his suspension.”
T.J. punched the knob off and slammed the heel of his handagainst the steering wheel. Damnit! Weeks ago, his world had been perfect. Now the bird ofparadise—no, a flock
