Page 30 of Out of Control

“I think Athena has heard enough,” he interrupted his mom’s newest story. “We have to get going.”

“Okay, okay. But you come visit me anytime, you hear?” Margaret said, addressing me. It was a little bittersweet. She reminded me so much of my own mother in some ways that I both longed to see her again and felt a pain in my heart from my own fresh loss. Not that it mattered anyway. I had no business coming back here.

“I told you, Mom, she’s not a girlfriend. Hell, she’s the opposite of a girlfriend. She doesn’t need to come back.”

“I’m not even a friend,” I volunteered, but I gave Margaret a small smile to soften my words.

“Exactly. So she won’t be visiting again.”

The finality in his tone made my heart thump again. While it was true, it still made me sad. Margaret needed more visitors to keep her mind off of Danielle.

Blake held up the bulky bulletproof vest for me to put on, and then I gave Margaret one last wave, feeling another sense of loss as we made our way back to his car. For the first time I noticed the miniature Swiss army knife on his key ring as he unlocked the car.

I wondered if little things like that reminded him of his sister or if old habits just died hard. Maybe it was both.

We were silent in the car for a few minutes before the urge to say something became unbearable.

“Your mom is really sweet.” I didn’t mention how sweet I thought he was for making sure he went right over when she called, listened to her false hopes, and placated her without a hint of a condescending attitude. He went along with it to make her happy and just tried to keep her grounded through it all.

“I feel I need to warn you not to tell anyone else about what you heard and saw there.”

So much for leaving behind the condescension.

“Warn me? Is that some kind of threat?”

His eyes narrowed, but he kept them trained on the road in front of him. “It’s not a threat. But I do promise you that if you give away private information about my family to people who would hurt my mother, you will regret it.”

It was a threat, but I wouldn’t hurt his mother for anything. I fumed in fury.

“And what kind of people would I associate with that would want to hurt you or your family?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who has been fraternizing with a crime family, not me.”

“I’ve done no such thing,” I said. That word implied I was interacting as a friend, but it was a ruse to get on their good side.

I was very aware of the phone call I was expecting—I looked to the dash to confirm the time—within the next fifteen minutes with an expected second interview invite from Carlo Morelli. Would I be alone by then, or would I have to field that call in front of Lucas?

“How long until we’re back at the house? You got me up so suddenly, and I really want to take a shower.”

His eyes left the road for a moment, taking me in quickly before darting back to the front. I recalled the mess on my head in desperate need of a brush and the pajamas I was still wearing.

“Don’t you dare judge how I look. You’re the one who forced me out of my house looking like this!” I warned him.

“I’m not judging, I’m committing it to memory,” he taunted. “I’m sure in ten years my mom is going to bring up ‘that nice girl you brought to breakfast in jammies’ when she’s lamenting why I’m still unmarried. I want to remember exactly how you looked today so I can smile at how uncomfortable it made you.”

“No surprise you think you’ll still be single in a decade. Does this mean you’re aware that you’re a dick?”

He shook his head. “I’m never really single for long so I think you’re the only person with such a poor opinion of me. But I doubt I’ll be married. If I was with someone long enough for Mom to really get attached and then something happened…It would just be too heartbreaking for her. She’s lost enough people in her life already.”

The transition into a serious conversation was unexpected, as was the fierce mask on his face. Was he hiding that he wouldn’t be the only heartbroken victim? Was Blake’s serial monogamy the same defense mechanism I used when I dated around?

I went on a lot of first dates, but hardly any fourth dates. Sometimes companionship was necessary; intimacy was not. I didn’t want to stick around long enough for anyone to get hurt. We were alike in more ways than I thought, but not compatible in the most important ones. I needed to flip the conversation back to something more casual.

“So instead you just lead a girl around for a while until she gets tired of you never fully committing and dumps you?”

His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Not exactly. I’m always honest about my intentions when I date someone. It’s not my fault if a woman expects my intentions to change after a while and gets impatient when they don’t.”

“Passing the buck off to a woman. Just like a man.”

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