I jerked and glanced over my shoulder when I heard the back door slam shut. She’d left me alone, wallowing once again. I’d come there for answers and had gotten what I wanted. But I damn well didn’t like it. I’d looked for an apology and got the bird and, much as I hated to admit it, it was a gesture I deserved.

Son of a bitch, she’d given up on me and I let her. I fucking let her.

Overhead I heard her in her apartment, slamming doors, her heels snapping against the hardwood and then, the rumbled of the pipes as she turned the water on.

Leave her alone. She doesn’t want you. No one will want you again.

I closed my eyes, breathing through my nose to fill my lungs to capacity. She may have walked away, she may have told herself that she wouldn’t try anymore, but I knew she hadn’t given up a damn thing. Not this girl. Those tears told a story. They were real. They were honest, and for the first time in over a year, I was working on a plan.

I had a fight I wanted to win.

She doesn’t want…

“Yeah. But I do.”

19

What’s the difference between past and present? It isn’t just time. It isn’t that memory haunts, that it can cripple. It’s the way we remember that marks the change. I saw him clearly that first day because he was impossible to miss. And every day since that first one in my tiny apartment with Ransom tugging a bulky mattress onto my floor, I hadn’t stopped seeing him just as he was.

Maybe that was the problem. I saw too much and nothing at all.

I’d seen his stoic, beaten expressions and let them soften my heart. I’d heard the harsh clip of his tone when he and Tristian argued and convinced myself that he was defensive because he was scared. Because he was alone.

I couldn’t do that anymore. At least, that’s what I told myself. It was a small mantra to get myself used to the idea of not letting Ransom consume my thoughts. I repeated it in the shower with my hair stuck to my neck and the soap bubbling around my feet. I don’t care, I said over and over until the syllables sounded like the insistent thump of a drum, a melody that I heard as an anthem, one that would stick in my head. Until I was sure that I could manage really, truly not caring about him at all. I practiced it as I toweled off, patting over my skin with my threadbare towels, wrapping the largest one around my body.

“I don’t care,” I mumbled as I stepped out of my tiny bathroom and came to a quick stop.

Turns out I did, in fact, care that Ransom was leaning against the kitchen counter, legs extended, arms crossed. I cared that he stared at me hard, that his eyes took on a look I’d only caught glimpses of when he’d watch over me, likely thinking I didn’t notice. There was something in that look that was more than lust, something I couldn’t clearly define but knew would affect me if I thought on it for too long.

He didn’t move and I couldn’t speak and we stared at each other. Ransom’s blatant perusal of my body, the slick glide of his eyes moving over my wet skin, made me lightheaded, feeling like I was on display but finding it impossible to be upset by it.

Finally, when those black, burning eyes of his settled on my breasts and the single bead of water that meandered in the cleft between them before disappearing behind the wrap of my tight towel, I couldn’t take the silence.

“Me zanmi, you grosoulye bata, what the hell are you…”

“Did you know,” he started, like this was completely normal, like it wasn’t highly inappropriate that I was nearly naked and he was in my apartment uninvited, “that the storage room next door has an old lock?” I shook my head, a little scared to move, more than a little annoyed with myself that I wanted to rip away the towel and give him exactly what his look told me he wanted. “That lock is easy to trip if you know how to do it.” Ransom glanced once at the small access door inside my laundry room. “Tristian used to bring Becca Asbury here before you moved in.”

In my mind, I saw Ransom squeezing his impossibly large body through that access panel door and pushing through the small space that was my laundry room. Why was he going to so much trouble? One glance back at his eyes still focused on my breasts gave me one possibility, but I didn’t put too much faith in that. That was just blatant lust.

“Why didn’t you knock?”

He finally moved his eyes away from my chest, shifting his focus to my face. I found that more unsettling than a slow rake of his gaze over my body.

“I didn’t think you’d let me in.”

When he pushed away from the counter, I backed up, walking into the wall behind me before I managed to stop him. “That’s far enough.”

“Aly…”

“Non. Stop right there.” A small voice in my head, one that sounded a lot like my grann screamed at me for keeping him at a distance. But my body was too worked up just by him being in my small apartment again. Besides, I was still annoyed, still bothered by how everything had ended before it really began. “Turn around,” I told him, flicking my forefinger in a circle to demonstrate. The apartment was too small for more than one person. It was definitely too small for Ransom and me, especially when I was nearly naked.

I hustled to my dresser, grabbing a pair of clingy sleep shorts and my favorite, worn t-shirt. It was black, had a frayed hem and pink letters that read Boss Ass Woman. Another mantra that had gotten me through the stickiest of awkward situations. I’d need it if I was going to work up the nerve to kick Ransom out of my apartment.

He didn’t try to sneak a peek, just stood legs apart as always, hands resting in his pockets as he popped his neck once. My fingers shook and I gave up on my bra when the hook would not fasten, rushing to slip on my tee and shorts. Still, I didn’t move from my dresser, stupidly thinking that the small distance between me and where Ransom stood next to that tiny sofa would keep me safe from him. Or him from me.

“Okay, so you wanna explain why you’re here? I thought we’d said everything that needed saying downstairs.”

“No.” Head turned, Ransom looked at me again, and a small, barely there grin pushed up one corner of his mouth as he saw the logo on my shirt. “Not hardly.”

“I can’t go back to your folks’ place.” The thread from my loosened hem scratched against my bare leg and I fisted it, nervous when Ransom stepped away from the sofa. “I mean, I miss them, but there are too many reminders and I…” I felt stupid, like a mumbling idiot with nothing remotely sensible to say. Ransom hadn’t looked away from my face. I kept on stammering. “Sarah, the girl from the diner, she’s good. Help…helped raise her four brothers. Koa will like…”

“Over a year?” he asked moving so close to me that the fabric from his bunched up sleeve brushed against my waist. “You were the girl with the asshole father.” I flicked my eyes to his, a little annoyed that he’d finally figured that out, embarrassed that he’d remembered. “You should have reminded me, Aly.”

A small wave of heat ran up my neck, almost suffocating in its intensity. I couldn’t tell if the irritation I felt was at myself for managing to only move my gaze to his mouth, or at Ransom for stepping so close, for using what he now remembered to intimidate me.

“It…it doesn’t really matter,” I said, deciding to direct my annoyance at him. Chin tilting up, I raised an eyebrow, ready to challenge him with one gesture, but failed miserably when Ransom lifted his hand to my face.