Page 82 of Reckless With You

So, I’d stayed with the state until they kicked me out on my eighteenth birthday.

I had Devin’s family now—well, at least I had been when we’d been kids.

But I wasn’t using them.

I was ignoring Devin’s calls. Something I hated, but as I didn’t know what to say, that’s what ended up being best. Maybe.

He had told me that he would kick my ass if I hurt Amelia, and I remembered the look on her face when I told her to get out. Even while not using those exact words, I figured I’d hurt her.

She would be better off without me, though.

Better off without all my new complications for sure. And as a man who didn’t like complications, who actively avoided them, this put me way out of my comfort zone.

I didn’t know what to do next.

All I did know was that I didn’t want to put any of the responsibility on Amelia’s shoulders.

And I didn’t know how I was going to face her brothers.

My best fucking friends.

But Devin wasn’t here, mostly because no one knew whereIwas.

If he had known, he’d probably be here.

But I was good at hiding, proficient at doing things on my own.

“You okay? No, that’s really not a good question, is it? You seem so lost.”

I cleared my head of my thoughts and looked over at Robbie.

“It seems like everything is happening all at once and yet not fast enough,” I said, leaning back in my chair.

Robbie let out a humorous laugh. “Tell me about it. We’ve been dealing with this for a year or so now. I don’t even know how long it’s been any more, truth be told. Melinda could give you the dates. She knows every one to come, too. Every piece of data, everything she has to know about the doctors. That’s what she’s good at, you know? The organizing and the math and anything that she can put her hands on.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said, holding back a wince.

“No, I don’t suppose you did. You two really weren’t a couple or anything.”

There was no censure in the man’s tone, nothing that belayed the fact that maybe Melinda and I had cheated, even though, technically, they hadn’t been together at the time.

Everything was so fucking complicated, but there was no more running from it. No more hiding.

“No. I didn’t really get to know her like I should have.”

I didn’t really get to know any of the women I’d been with. Except for Amelia. I knew her.

But that didn’t matter. Because of the big mistake. No matter how many times I told myself that it had to be fake, I thought maybe it wasn’t. And I’d told Devin I wouldn’t hurt her, but it didn’t matter in the end.

Because I had.

And there was no fixing that.

“Well, I’m kind of glad you didn’t get to know her. Because if you had, she wouldn’t have come back to me.”

“I’m glad you have her. You have each other.”

“Me, too. Before Evan came along, she was the best thing in my life. Our fight that made us break up was so stupid. About school, of all things.” I frowned, looking over at him. “I wanted to go back to school, something I didn’t end up doing in the end because I got a promotion at work and everything worked out. But she didn’t want to put her career on hold and pay for me to go or some shit like that. It was just so stupid because I would have figured it out on my own. But she thought that we needed to do it together, even though it didn’t all fall on her. It didn’t really matter in the end, though, because she came back, and we had each other. And then Evan.”