Page 68 of Love Me Not
Trey sat back down. “There’s nothing wrong with being single.”
“Exactly. Thank you.”
“Unless you don’t want to be.”
Scooting to the edge of the couch cushion, I attempted to pull off my boots. “I do want to be, but they can’t get that through their thick skulls because each of them wanted the exact same thing until the boys came along.”
“They all wanted to be single?”
“They did,” I mumbled, wrestling with my right boot and getting nowhere. “All for different reasons, but single all the same.”
After watching me struggle for several more seconds, Trey said, “I can help you with that.”
Frustrated, I flopped my leg onto the couch. “Yes, please. I remember now why I don’t wear these things that often.”
With a quick tug, the boot came right off. “Let me get the other one,” he said, gesturing toward my other foot. I obeyed and with a small tug, my foot was free. Folding one over the other, he placed them neatly at the end of the coffee table. “There you go.”
“Thank you.” I wiggled my toes. “That was much easier.”
Trey smiled. “Happy to be of assistance.”
Keeping my feet on the couch between us, I crossed my ankles and leaned an elbow on the back cushion. “I have to admit something.”
His brows arched. “What’s that?”
“I like you more than I want to like you.”
Why this confession came out now I didn’t know. I just knew that having him here, on my couch, was far more comfortable than I’d ever been with a guy. In the past, there’d been an odd buzz in the air. A tension of not knowing what they expected or what they were thinking. Did they approve of how I lived and talked and who I was?
In most cases, I’d eventually learn that the answer to all of those questions was no. Despite my best efforts to contort myself into what I thought they wanted, the end was always the same. I was too cold or too rational or too distant or too eighty other things. Relationships were a losing game, so I opted out. No more playing for me.
Until now.
“Do you think you’ll come around to wanting to like me?”
That felt like a distinct possibility. “Time will tell. I hope you really are the guy you’ve made yourself out to be, though. If not, this is going to suck. Again.”
The last part slipped out.
“Again?” he asked. With a sigh, I leaned my head on the back of the couch. Nudging my foot with his knee, he said, “We don’t have to talk about it.”
We did, actually. Because I’d rather know now if this would be a repeat of the past.
“I didn’t always have this no dating stance.” I toyed with a loose string on the shredded part of my jeans. “I dated like anyone else dates when I was in my twenties, and the relationships always ended the same way. Basically, I was the problem.”
“The problem how?”
Where to start? “I wasn’t affectionate enough or domestic enough. One couldn’t see me as the mother of his children because I’m too cold and distant. Another claimed he could never tell if I actually cared that he was around because I didn’t do cartwheels upon opening the door, I guess. Now that I think about it, one guy said I wasn’t adventurous enough, which doesn’t bode well for us considering what you said that day in the truck.”
After chucking every insecurity onto the couch between us, Trey remained silent, but there was a slight twitch in the muscle along his jawline. So this was probably where things ended. He’d likely still help with the play, but there wouldn’t be anything more personal between us. Not that I blamed him. Clearly, I was faulty goods.
“You went out with some real jerks,” he finally said.
“The common denominator was me, so…”
“Lindsey, don’t believe any of that crap. Those guys had insecurities and they took them out on you.”
His staunch defense was appreciated, but there was one important fact to remember. “You don’t know me, Trey. We’ve barely spent any time together for you to say one way or another if any of those claims are wrong.”