Page 52 of Broken Love

She zips her fly and shoves her feet into her boots. “I have to go—”

I grab her arm. “Stop.”

She freezes in place with her eyes on the floor, refusing to look at me.

“I said I wouldn’t tell anybody about this, and I meant that,” I say. “I’ll take this to the grave if you really want me to, but I won’t pretend it never happened.”

“Fine,” she says, flicking her dark eyes at me. “It happened. It was fun. We both enjoyed it, but it won’t happen again. It can’t.”

I let go of her. “Why not?”

“You know why not.”

“Yeah, yeah. Reputation and duty or whatever but you’re not going to be out here forever.”

She looks straight ahead. “This… this isn’t who I am. You’re not…”

Her voice falls again.

And there it is.

I’m not sure why I didn’t see it coming until this moment. This isn’t about her.

It’s about me.

“Oh.” I collapse into the seat. “I get it.”

Why would she ever go for an asshole like me when she’s surrounded by heroes like Fox fucking Fitzpatrick?

“You’re right,” I say. “This was wrong. It shouldn’t happen again.”

I reach for my bag and throw it over my shoulder without looking at her.

“I’ll go first,” she says.

“Cool.”

She takes a quick look out the windows before climbing out and closing the door softly behind her.

So, that’s it. The end of my affair with Caleb Fawn.

It crashed and burned just as quickly as it began but holy shit — it sure was fun while it lasted.

I fucked the untouchable Caleb Fawn. Not only that, she enjoyed it. She even admitted it, but she never had to. I fucking felt it and she sure as hell wasn’t faking it.

I’ll let this feeling linger for a few more minutes before heading back to the barracks and crashing right back down to zero.

I scoop my laptop off the floor and open it to see Marilyn Black staring back at me from the old photograph.

Caleb’s probably right. I absolutely should let this go. I suppose that’s a consequence of growing up a lonely kid with an overactive imagination. I’ve always had a thing for puzzles. Crossword, jigsaw. You name it, I solved it. What I have here now is a bunch of corner and edge pieces with nothing in the middle to connect them together. I could keep digging through the box to figure out what the mystery picture is, or I could move on and live with the unfinished puzzle lingering in the back of my head for the rest of my life. Of course, if I do that, then I sure as hell better have something better to occupy my headspace.

I close my laptop and look around the jeep as my memories of the last half hour come crashing back in.

Caleb.

I think about her mewling on top of me and I smile.

There’s no way I can let this be a one-time thing.

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