Page 50 of Sin Bin

“I can get it myself,” she snips, when I try to open the passenger’s side door for her. She wrestles her way into my car, plopping down with little grace, so that the hem of her skirt lifts up her slimthighs.

I swear, this woman was put on this earth totemptme.

“No problem,” I mutter, closing the door after her, and then getting in on thedriver’sside.

I’d like to say that we launch into conversation after that. That we somehow find ourselves as we were before we kissed, before I knew that her body was my version ofheaven.

Notthecase.

Instead, we spend the next ten minutes in silence on the way to her house in Somerville. I palm the wheel, and pull into her driveway. There aren’t any lights on in thehouse.

“I’msorry.”

In the shadows of my car, I see her head whip around tome. “What?”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. Apologizing has never been my “thing.”

“I’m sorry,” I reiterate, my fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “For what I did back at The Box . . . forembarrassingyou.”

“Andre, want to know something?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer, just plows forward. “Your little stunt in front of your teammates isnothingcompared to what I went throughlastyear.”

Iknow.

The words almost leave me, but I damn well know that they’re inadequate. I have no excuses for leaving her out in the cold the way I did in Detroit. My only defense—and it’s a weak one at that—is that I was so consumed by what was going on inmylife that there was no room to considereveryoneelse.

More than that, though, was the underlying realization that I was no good for Zoe Mackenzie. Not then and certainlynotnow.

But youwanther.

Always. I’ve alwayswantedher.

And that makes me a shittyperson.

Her echoing laugh is caustic. “Still nothing to say to that?” She chuffs harshly. “Of course you don’t. King Sin Bin wouldneverlower himself to talkaboutemo—”

Fuckthat.

“You really want to talk about thisrightnow,Zoe?”

“You’re never going to talk about it otherwise,” she snaps in return. “Maybe if you think I’m too drunk to remember, you’ll finally open upforonce.”

Too drunk toremember. . . ?

That sentence right there tells me that she isn’t as wasted as she’d like me to believe. Which is fine. If she wants to do this right now, then we will. I twist the keys out of the ignition, then throw them up onto the dashboard. The interior of the car plunges into darkness. Her sharp intake of breath reaffirms what I already know: we need the shadows, thedarkness.

In the sunlight, we risk too much ofourselves.

“I couldn’tstay,Zo.”

She doesn’t react to the shortened form of her name. “No,” she says stiffly, “youwouldn’tstay. We both know that you got exactly what you wanted from me. As soon as you got it, as soon as it blew up in your face, youdippedout.”

As much as it hurts to know she thinks that, I’m firmly aware of the fact that I never gave her a reason to believe otherwise. “It wasn’t just sex between us, Zoe. We werefriends.”

“Friends don’t have sex, Andre, and they certainly don’t leave the moment things getrough.”

Roughdidn’t even begin to explain it. My life had been torn at the seams. Zoe had been the balm I needed, the balm I craved. But sex had complicated that—and my life had already been toocomplicated.

“You’re right,” I tell her, because it’s true. “I’m not going to defend myself and tell you lies.” I lower my voice. “I shouldn’t have left you to deal with everything alone. You were my friend and I letyoudown.”

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