Love and Learn (Voretti Family Book 2) (6 page)

You were the one I needed.

She leaned forward, like she was reading the words from his eyes, and he breathed her in.
 

It wasn’t enough.
 

He wanted her weight against him, solid and real and
here.

Fuck friendship.
 

He reached across the table—
 

—and Annabelle jerked back against the vinyl bench. “Well, I still think Bri is a bitch.”

She looked so surprised that the curse had come out of her mouth that, despite everything, Ty chuckled. And then Annabelle was laughing too—the kind of full belly laugh that made the entire world a warm, welcoming place.
 

“What?” Annabelle finally managed. “She
is
.”

“Won’t argue with you there, sweetheart.”

He loved seeing her like this—just buzzed enough that her barriers came down, letting her respond without prior approval from that committee inside her head. It reminded him of the way she’d been on prom night. Everything had been easy—the dancing, the conversation, the way her body fit against his when he kissed her—like the universe was telling him she was the one.
 

But the next morning, Sean had shown up on his doorstep. When Sean had mentioned the Navy, Ty had thought he was joking. He’d known Sean didn’t have the same picture-perfect home life he did, but he’d been happily ignorant of how bad it had become. Sean’s parents had taken off, leaving him penniless and homeless, his best option to enlist.
 

Ty had joined up too, unwilling to abandon his best friend after he’d already failed him in so many other ways. He’d cut Annabelle loose because it was the right thing to do. He couldn’t ask her to wait for him when he had no idea when he’d been home for good.
If
he’d be home for good.
 

As the years had passed, that night with Annabelle had seemed like an adolescent fantasy. Nothing was
that
good.

But this was real.
 

“I saw your glasses were empty, so I brought another round.” Liv’s amused voice disrupted the fantasy where he and Annabelle were getting much more intimately reacquainted. She set a glass in front of him.
 

Annabelle held up both hands, warding off the second pint glass. “None for me.”

“You need this.” Liv found her opening and took quick advantage, sliding Annabelle’s beer across the table without spilling a drop. “Drink up! And don’t you dare chicken out!”

Before Annabelle could reply, Liv’s platform heels clacked away.

With Annabelle glaring a hole in her sister’s retreating back, it would be smart to change the subject. But Ty had to know. “Chicken out?”
 

“It’s nothing.” Annabelle traced a set of initials someone had carved into the table. “She thinks we’re on a date.”

“Who cares what she thinks?”

“It’s not her, so much as all the people she’s going to tell. Last year, when she found out our cousin Claire was pregnant, the news got all the way to Mr. Belvins.”

“Mr. Belvins our twelfth grade chemistry teacher?”

“That’s the one.”

“Even if she tells the whole world we’re dating, all you have to do is say it’s not true. Who’s everyone going to believe—you or Liv?”

Annabelle tilted her head, and he could practically see the gears turning inside her brain, trying to come up with a statistical equation to calculate the odds.

“But, hypothetically, if this
were
a date,” he said, before she could bust out a paper and pencil, “why would your sister think you need liquid courage?”

“She likes to give me a hard time. You know how sisters are.” Though Annabelle had wiped her hands after she finished her burger, she grabbed a clean napkin and started over.

There was only one explanation he could come up with, and it made him feel strangely guilty. “So it’s been a while for you?”
 

“No.” She scrubbed harder with the napkin. “Christian and I only broke up a few weeks ago.”

“Then what is it?” He laid his hand over hers before she could do any more damage.
 

“Nothing.”

Her pulse throbbed against his thumb and his heart beat faster, syncing with hers. “You’re a liar, sweetheart.”

She sucked in a breath, but she didn’t try to pull away. “How do you know? Or did they teach you mind reading as soon as they were done with fast roping?”

“Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll make it better.”

The sound she made was somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“Let’s make a bet. I solve your problem, you have dinner with me again.”

“And if you don’t?”

“Anything you want.” He leaned toward her, still holding her wrist because he couldn’t make himself break contact. “Now out with it.”

“It’s nothing, really.” She downed half of her beer.
 

“Then it shouldn’t take you long to explain it.”

“It’s that Human Sexuality class. I’m a little uncomfortable with the material. The other day I made the mistake of asking Liv for advice, and she seemed to think I should…that I needed to…you know. Date.”

He’d only talked to Liv for a few minutes, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t have used the D word. “She said you needed to get laid. Didn’t she?”

“She said it like it’s so easy! Like all I have to do is walk into a bar and pick up some guy. But I can’t.”

“‘Course not. You don’t want to hook up with some stranger. He could be an axe-murdering psycho crawling with STDs.”
 

“No, it’s not… You don’t understand.”

“Explain it to me.”

“You don’t want to know.” Her flat, even tone made his chest go tight. She wasn’t flirting or joking around. She was absolutely serious, and the logical part of his brain picked up on the warning loud and clear. Maybe he
didn’t
want to know.

Too bad the animal part of his brain had taken over his muscles. “Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know.”

“Fine.” Annabelle pounded the rest of the beer she’d claimed not to want. She thumped the empty glass onto the table. “I’m a frigid, genetic freak. I can’t enjoy sex. I’m terrible at it. So how am I supposed to explain how normal human sexual behavior evolved?”
 

Her words hit him like a flashbang grenade—loud and bright and sudden. His ears rang and he couldn’t make sense of anything, least of all what she’d said. How could the responsive, sensual woman he remembered possibly think she was frigid? “Who told you that? Your asshat ex?”

“No one.” She turned, trying to pull out of his grasp.

He tightened his hold on her wrist. “Well, it’s bullshit.”
 

The guys at the pool table turned to see what was going on, and he realized he’d gone loud.

Damn
. Why was he so worked up?

He dialed his volume down. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I’m twenty-five years old and I’ve never had a relationship that lasted longer than a few weeks. As soon as things get physical, the guy decides he’s not ready to commit or he gets back together with his ex or he remembers that brunettes aren’t his type. Most of the time, they don’t even last past the first date.” Annabelle met his gaze, chin jutting defiantly. “That’s not normal.”
 

Ty’s heart pounded in his ears. His vision tunneled, getting rid of every bit of nonessential information. Everything but Annabelle.

What kind of incompetent asshats had she been dating that she’d gotten such a screwed up view of her own sexuality? He was going to kick every last one of their asses, starting with Christian.

No. He was gonna relax. Just like his injury, he had to trust this had happened for a reason.

He took a deep breath, letting the testosterone dissipate enough that he could squeeze Annabelle’s wrist reassuringly and shoot her his don’t-worry-about-a-thing smile. He’d wanted a way to make up for being a shit friend. Well, here was his chance right in front of him, a gift from the universe. “Sounds like the only thing you need is a little one-on-one tutoring. We’ll start tomorrow night.”

A
NNABELLE
WOKE
UP
with a headache. In between lab work, she mainlined Gatorade and dosed herself with extra-strength aspirin, but her head was still pounding at six PM when she left lab for the day. The problem was, she didn’t have a hangover. It was a physical manifestation of nerves over her big mistake last night.
 

What had she been thinking, baring her soul to Ty, of all people? No way was she going to be able to face him in Human Sexuality lecture tomorrow, much less survive whatever “tutoring” he had in mind for tonight. She’d been trying to cancel all day, but he hadn’t responded to her emails. She didn’t have his cell number, and neither did the phone directory, the Internet, or her three remaining high-school friends.

By the time she made it back to her apartment, the gang inside her head was bludgeoning her frontal lobe. She stumbled down the narrow hall into her bedroom. She’d woken up so late, she hadn’t had time to make her bed, but even with crumpled sheets and bunched up pillows, it was calling her.

She forced herself past it, to her desk. Inside the file drawer, she flipped through tax returns and medical records until she got to the unlabeled folder in the back. The one that wouldn’t be there if she were a stronger person.

The bulging folder held every letter Ty had sent her while in the Navy. She’d reread many of them, but never the one at the bottom. She’d filed that one away long ago and tried to pretend it wasn’t there.
 

Today, she needed to look at it.

She grabbed the folded square of lined notebook paper. It was no longer crisp. The neat block letters that spelled out her name had faded, but she still remembered the moment she’d taken it out of the mailbox seven years ago. The sun had been a warm blanket on her shoulders, the air crisp and fresh, like anything was possible. She’d hugged the paper to her heart, savoring the moment before she opened her first love letter.

She’d been so naive.

This time, she knew exactly what was inside. She unfolded the paper just as slowly as she had before, but it was a different kind of careful. Not the focus a historian would use to examine a precious artifact, but the caution a police officer might use to disarm a bomb.

I can’t meet up tonight. Sorry to bail at the last minute, but it’s better this way. I’m not ready for a relationship right now.

Her heart thundered in her chest. Her head throbbed.
 

She sucked in a breath.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me
.

This time, she wasn’t going to let herself get sucked in by Ty’s sexy muscles, soft-voiced drawl, and you’re-the-only-one-I-want-babe smile. He would only break her heart again.

She jammed the note back inside the folder, shoved the folder into the drawer, and slammed it shut. Then she grabbed a blank page from her printer tray and scrawled a note of her own.

I can’t make it tonight. Sorry to cancel at the last minute, but it’s better this way. The two of us don’t make sense together.

She folded the paper in half, wrote Ty’s name on the outside, and taped it to her front door. Then she ran to her car and drove to her best friend Calli’s house like an entire regiment of SEALs was chasing her.

It was finally over. Maybe, in a fairy tale, Prince Charming would chase after Cinderella, but Ty had never been a prince. He’d realize she was too much work and he’d cut his losses, because he didn’t want her that badly.

He didn’t want
anything
that badly.

Tears pushed at her eyes, but she blinked them back. She wasn’t losing Ty.

She’d never had him in the first place.

*

“Oh my God. What happened?”

Annabelle waited until Calli twisted the deadbolt, securing them inside the tiny studio. The band around her lungs loosened, and she pulled in a breath.
 

She’d made it. Eventually she’d have to face Ty, but not tonight. “I’m sorry. I should have called first, but…”
 

Her voice went all high and funny, and she had to swallow the tears that wanted to come out instead of words.

“You need a drink.” Calli hustled her over to the couch, fluffed the pillows, and settled her against them.

Annabelle didn’t have the energy to fight. She sank into the familiar squashed cushions while Calli rummaged in the cabinet above the refrigerator—the one with the alcohol. “I’m fine. Really.”

Calli raised one delicate blonde brow as she poured her prized Anderan vodka and tonic water into two plastic tumblers. “You don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to cry. Or maybe kick someone’s ass.”

She handed over Annabelle’s drink. “I’m hoping it’s Christian’s. He totally deserves it.”

Christian was so far off Annabelle’s radar that it took her a second to figure out who Calli was talking about. “It’s…no. It’s not him.”

“So it’s a
different
guy?”

Annabelle took a big sip, then coughed. Calli hadn’t gone light on the vodka. “Did you run out of tonic water?”

Calli sank onto the cushion next to her, and took a healthy gulp of her own drink. “You’re not the only one who needed a drink. Tony took off.”
 

Annabelle took a good look at her friend, registering the telltale reddish tint to Calli’s eyes that she’d been too self-centered to notice before. “Oh, honey.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m better off without him. Now, where can I find this guy who did you wrong? Because I’m going to kick his ass myself.”

It was so like Calli to brush off the end of her year-long relationship like it was nothing, focusing on Annabelle instead. Calli took great care of everyone but herself. “What happened with Tony? I thought things were going well?”

“So did I. He’d gotten that job at Harrison and Foster, and he seemed so happy. I thought we were finally ready to take the next step in our relationship. Only, it turned out that he actually wanted to take that next step with Maureen from accounting.”