“Something making you smile, Hunter?”

“Yeah! I never got a round of applause before.” Although there was that one time the women’s lacrosse team at UCSD gave me a platinum star rating on their facebook page.

“Maybe she was applauding me,” Caro suggested, her eyebrows raised cockily.

“Nah, she thinks I’m a stud, I can tell.”

I peeled off the used condom, hiding the split.

“Well, it’s a good thing you don’t have performance anxiety; that can put a man off his stride, so they say.”

Her words evoked a powerful memory, and despite my decision to leave the past in the past, the screwed up 17 year-old that I’d once been, resurfaced.

“Do you ever think about the first time we were together? You know, when…”

She interrupted me, saying my name softly, like a prayer or a promise.

“Sebastian, you don’t have to remind me—it’s not something I’m likely to forget.”

“Sorry. It’s just … I thought about it a lot at the time and seeing you again this past week … it’s brought it all back.”

“For me, too.”

Lost in the memories, I leaned over to run a finger across the satiny skin of her cheek, before laying back again.

“Do you know how amazing you were that night? You took care of me after my dad had beaten the shit out of me.” I closed my eyes, pushing away the darkness of that memory. “I thought my heart was going to fucking stop when you undressed me and you took your clothes off. And then you touched me and my cock just exploded. I thought you’d laugh at me or something. It was so fucking humiliating.”

I paused, emotions too strong to control forcing the words out.

“But you didn’t. You made me feel like a man. I remember every word that you said. You told me it was going to be okay, and I didn’t know how it could be, but somehow you made the world go away, like it was just you and me.”

She was silent, drifting in her own thoughts.

“That’s how you make me feel, Caro, like the world just goes away and it’s just you and me. I … I didn’t think I’d ever feel like that again. All those other women, I know it bothers you, but it was just sex. It wasn’t … this.”

Her voice was soft when she replied.

“So, there was never anyone special, where it was more than just sex?”

I needed to be honest with her—no more secrets, no more lies, no more hiding what I felt about her. I was tired of the fear I felt when I was with her—fear that she’d leave me and I’d be alone again.

“There was one girl, Stacey, that I sort of dated for a while. She was … okay, but I wasn’t interested in anything long-term.”

“What happened?” Caro asked quietly.

I shrugged and looked away. She hadn’t meant anything.

“I heard her telling a girlfriend that she’d got me ‘tamed’.” Stupid bitch—just because I’d been playing nice with her—and only then because she was a friend of Ches’s wife.

“Oh, I can guess how much you enjoyed hearing that,” Caro said, shaking her head. “What did you do?”

“I slept with her best friend.”

The breath caught in her throat and a look of deep disapproval spread across Caro’s face which I didn’t really understand.

“I see,” she said sharply.

I shrugged and stared up at the ceiling.

“You asked me why Ches’s wife didn’t approve of me, and that’s the reason. Stacey was a friend of hers. And before you ask, no, I didn’t sleep with Amy—it was another girl. I would never do that to Ches.”

Caro took a deep breath.

“Well, I’m not surprised Amy doesn’t like you after you did that to her friend … and it’s not very reassuring to hear that you’ve shown your dick to half the female population of California—and Paris, or so I’ve heard—but that’s your business. But surely you see that you made things difficult for Ches.”

What the fuck? How did we go from Stacey to this?

“How’s that?” I asked, not hiding the irritation in my voice.

“You put him in the middle, making him choose between his best friend and his wife.”

“What? How was I making him ‘choose’?”

“Well, I bet you anything Amy would have said she didn’t want you in the house if you were going to treat her friends like that, and Ches would have had to find some way of defending what was, frankly, indefensible behavior.”

She was accusing me of indefensible behavior? What about the way she’d shrugged me off like a cheap suit ten years ago? What about the way she’d left me to deal with my parents and all the shit that went down? I was 17. Seventeen.

“You get on your fucking high horse damn quickly, Caro,” I snapped.

“I’m just saying…” she began.

“What? What the fuck are you ‘just saying’?” I grit out, unable to stop my voice growing louder with each syllable. “You were a fucking journalist, Caro! You could have found me any time if you’d wanted to. It would have been so easy for you. So easy! I didn’t even know your last name. I was so desperate to find you that I even tried to see that prick of a husband of yours, but he slammed the door in my face and called my CO. I was on fucking punishment duties for weeks after that. But you didn’t give a shit, did you? It’s just lies. You just tell me what you think I want to hear. How can I ever trust you?”

“Sebastian, I…”

“I really want to hear this, Caro!” I yelled, my heart pounding and adrenaline shooting through my body as fight or flight warred inside me. “I really want to hear how hard you tried to find me. You knew my fucking father was forcing me to enlist because of you, but you didn’t even bother to make a few fucking phone calls. Three years I waited for you, Caro. Three fucking years, while you were off building your career and having a great life traveling all over the world. So yeah, I fucked some women who deserved it, because I’d already been fucked over once and I wasn’t going to let it happen again.”

She looked sick, gripping the sheet to her chest like she was afraid of me. Christ! As if I could ever hurt her … the way she’d hurt me.

“It wasn’t like that, Sebastian. Just listen to me for a moment! Let me explain, I…”

“Go tell it to the Marines, Caro,” I shouted, fury and ten years of resentment overtaking me, “because I’m not listening.”

She sat up and reached for her t-shirt. Shit! She was leaving. Again. I fucking knew it! I knew she was lying! She’d lied about it all.

“Where are you going?” I snarled at her. “Running away again? Yeah, well, it’s what you do best, isn’t it? Run away. Fuck that! I’ll save you the trouble.”

I leapt out of bed, pulled on my jeans, thrust my bare feet into motorcycle boots, then scooped up my t-shirt and jacket.

I was shaking with anger, unable to believe that it was happening again. Again!

I had no idea where I was going when I stormed out of there—just away—before my still-beating heart got ripped out of my chest and tossed into the dirt.

As I kick-started the bike’s engine, the loud roar echoed the way I wanted to yell, pouring out my fury, refusing to admit that the pain was crushing.

I tore down the stony track to the highway, too fast for the skittering headlight, bumping and swerving over the rutted tracks, covering my boots and jeans with a layer of thick dust. When I hit the highway, I opened the throttle and let her go, taking the bends too fast, not caring if I was still alive on the other side. Ten miles down the road, the engine began to sputter and I realized the reserve tank was running on fumes. I slowed down when I saw the lights of small town, pulling into the first place I saw that had a parking lot.

Well, color me fucking ecstatic—the neon sign welcomed me in. I went to stand at the bar, not even looking at the al banco price list, instead just waving to the elderly bartender with the cartoon villain mustache to bring me a bottle of grappa when he admitted that there was no whiskey. Not that I cared—I just wanted to get shitfaced and numb as fast as possible.