Page 57 of My Irresistible Enemy

“Oh, come on. That’s not true.”

I gave Nolan a level look. “You’re telling me youdon’tfind me obnoxious?”

He laughed. “Maybe not, but are you trying to tell me you don’t play it up just to annoy me? That you’re always dialed up to three-hundred percent, all the time?”

“Well, maybe I’ve honed the skill a bit over the years. But in my defense, being obnoxiouswasmy defense. My only one. I got bullied once I came out, and look at me. I’m short, I’m thin. I couldn’t fight a four-year-old, much less your average high-school jock. The only thing I could do was show them I didn’t care. Refuse to let their opinions affect me. I’m not going to let other people make me feel ashamed of myself, you know?”

Nolan pressed his lips together, his jaw tightening. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t need to.

“Go on, say it.”

“Say what?”

“That maybe Ishouldcare about people’s opinions a little more. I know you’re thinking it.”

“That actually wasn’t what I was thinking at all.”

“Oh, really?”

“I was thinking that’s a very brave way to live.”

I tilted my glass and drained the rest of my sangria. “It’s the only way to live. If I cared about what other people thought, I’d never have had the courage to be myself. I’m not sure I would have made it out of high school. But I’m not gonna be a fucking coward, you know?”

Again, Nolan’s jaw tightened, and again, he didn’t say anything. I sighed. We’d been doing so well, but clearly I’d said something to annoy him. If I didn’t change the subject, we’d probably sit in silence for the next half hour and convince everyone we’d broken up.

“I saw you talking to the guys who own the inn the other day,” I said, casting around for a new topic of conversation. “They seem nice. Cute, for sure.”

Nolan laughed. “Yeah. I guess they are, though I guarantee you both of them would be embarrassed to hear you say that.”

“Do you know them well?”

“I used to work with Mal, back in DC, before he moved down here. He’s a good friend. I met Deacon around the time they started dating.”

“Is that how you know Em, too? And Nora?”

I’d been dying to ask all of this. Nolan seemed to have so many friends down here, which suggested that he wasn’t the same person around them as he was on the show, or around me. I wondered what it would be like, to see him through their eyes.

“Yes and no. Em is Deacon’s brother, so I did meet him that way. But then he started dating my old college roommate, Tate. So I’ve gotten to know him a bit through that, too.”

“Are you like, a matchmaker or something? Setting all your friends up with the loves of their lives or whatever?”

“Hardly. I actually wasn’t even friends with Tate anymore, when he and Em met. We’d kinda had a—well, it doesn’t matter.”

“Ooh, awhat? A fight? A breakup? Did you two date or something?”

“What?” Nolan’s eyes went wide. “God, no. No, Tate and I never—no. He was not—that wouldn’t have been—just—no. Definitely not.”

“So…that’s a no, then?”

“To put it mildly.” Nolan laughed softly. “I came out to Tate in college, and he told me I was disgusting and never wanted to speak to me again.”

“Jesus. Sounds like he would have gotten along well with my parents.”

“Probably. It took a while before he came around to accepting, well—”

“Himself?”

“You could put it that way.” Nolan shook his head. “The point is, we never dated. Not that I date people anyway. I don’t do the whole relationship thing. But definitely not with Tate.”

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