Page 25 of The Swiping Game
“You can’t get rid of me that easy,” he says and I immediately relax. “Plus, I need to make sure you’re okay. Do you want to talk about it?”
I lay back and try to get comfortable in my bed and figure out how to honestly answer that. “No, I’m not okay. But I don’t want to talk about it. What is there to talk about? My ex-husband is an asshole and I’m stuck cleaning up his mess. There’s no use dwelling on either of those facts. It’s just life. And sometimes, life isn’t fair.”
“But it should be,” James says.
“Well, I’ve learned that’s not how life works.”
“I didn’t think you were a glass-half-empty kind of girl.”
“What made you think that?”
“Just,” James doesn’t say anything, and for a second, I think the call may have dropped. “All I’m saying is that women like you, who have the weight of the world on their shoulders, are usually the ones that surprise you and have the most positive outlooks on life. And they are usually the ones who wear the thickest coats of armor to make sure no one knows that the glass is actually almost empty.”
Holy shit. How? How does this man—whom I’ve been talking to for only a week and have never met in person—know me so well? Everything he just said? He hit the nail on the head.
“I try to,” I say. “But sometimes it’s just so hard to be positive. Hell, sometimes it’s hard just getting out of bed.”
“You shouldn’t have to carry all of this by yourself.”
“If I don’t, who will?”
“How about me?”
What?
Excuse me?
Did he just say what I think he just said?
I drop my phone and then scramble to pick it up off the bed. I meant that to be a rhetorical question. There’s no one who should have to carry this—well, besides Brad—other than me. I never even thought of what would happen if one day I’d start dating again and that person would have to know about my debts. I just figured it would always be my cross to bear.
“Tara? You there?”
I fumble with the phone before I put it back to my ear. “Yeah. Sorry about that. So, tell me about this office show?”
“Nope. No changing the subject.”
I let out a breath. “James, it’s very sweet of you to offer—”
“Wait. Before you go any further, I’m not talking about paying off your debt or putting out a hit on your ex, though that last one is sounding better and better the more I think about it. I know this is new between us, but I hope it’s going somewhere. And I’m a fixer. I can’t stand back and watch other people hurt or suffer when I could be doing something to help them. So, my dear Tara, I’m going to help you, whether you like it or not.”
I feel the tears well up in my eyes again, but this time for a completely different reason than earlier tonight.
“I mean, that sounds great. All of it. But how would you? Not that I’m trying to be negative, I just . . .this is my problem. And I’m going to figure out how to deal with it.”
“I thought you might ask this,” he says, and I feel like if I saw him right now, he’d have some sort of smirk. “I want you to lie back in your bed and close your eyes.”
“Really?” I ask, because this sounds a little ridiculous. “You want me to lie in bed?”
“Are you going to let me help you, or are you going to fight me every step of the way? Though I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he says shortly. “What I meant is that since you like being in control of everything, this kind of thing isn’t natural or you.”
“Oh. Well, you’re not wrong.”
“See? Just trust me. Now lie back, get comfortable, and close your eyes.”
