He sinks to the ground with me straddling his thighs and holds me. I glance down to where the water is soaking his shorts.
“Your clothes are getting all wet,” I hiccup.
“I have plenty of clothes I can change into,” he replies, reminding me he’d used the resort’s laundry service since he decided to stay an extra week with me. Then he cups my chin to lift my tear-stained face. “Did someone hurt you, Juliette?”
“It was a few years ago,” I reply.
He shakes his head, the flame in his pretty green eyes a mixture of concern and barely disguised fury. “It doesn’t matter. Stuff like that leaves a scar on your soul, and that can’t be fully erased by time.” His lips are so soft when they brush across my forehead, I wonder if I imagined it. “Tell me who hurt you.”
“It was my ex.”
“Name?” he asks curtly.
“Collin.”
“Collin what?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s gone now.”
“Did someone kill him?” He asks that so apathetically—like he wouldn’t give a shit if Collin was dead or not—it makes me smile just a little.
“He’s not dead, but he would have been if my brother had gotten hold of him.”
“I think I like your brother,” he replies, one side of his lips hitching up before his face turns serious again. “What happened?”
I don’t like talking about this, but after the painful story Reno had shared, I feel an almost irrepressible need to tell him. I blow out a raspberry before scooching closer to press my torso tightly against his. Burying my face in the side of his neck, I begin to talk.
“When I first met Collin, everything seemed to be fine.” One of my shoulders makes a little shrug. “But I guess that’s how all these situationsbegin. No one says, ‘Hey, this guy is a total twat muffin. Maybe I should see if he wants to go out again.’”
“Twat muffin?” Reno asks, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“It’s my name for him. Though Bubba always called him colon behind his back because he said Collin was full of shit.” I sigh. “And I guess Bubba was right. Anyway, everything started out fine. There were tiny signs that I suppose I should have recognized as potential red flags, but they were few and far between.”
“What kinds of signs?”
“Mostly eye rolling and long sighs when he’d get annoyed with me. He seemed to have a bit of a short fuse when I did something scatterbrained or had to be reminded of something. Nothing overt; he would just get bothered easily.”
“Impatient twat muffin,” Reno mutters.
“Fast forward a year, and we got engaged.” I feel Reno stiffen before he relaxes his posture and strokes my ponytail. “Everything was still okay, but Collin’s fuse got a little shorter, especially when…”
I pause, trying to phrase this properly so Reno wouldn’t know who I was talking about. And hewouldknow if I went into too much detail.
“He got transferred because of work,” I explain. “He wanted me to move with him, but I was right in the middle of the summer reading program for kids at my library, so I said I would move in the fall.”
The cool water brushes against my knees, and I roll my lips inward before going on to the next part of the story.
“I decided to go visit him one weekend, but my flight was delayed. Collin had made reservations at some fancy restaurant, so he was aggravated as hell when I finally arrived two hours late. He…” I swallow hard. “He yelled at me when we got in the car.”
“Motherfucker,” Reno bites out. “How the hell did he think that was your fault?”
“Because he’s a twat muffin,” I reply dryly. “So he already wasn’t in the best mood, and when we were almost to his apartment, I realizedI’d forgotten to pack my phone charger. You know, because of the aforementioned scatterbrained-ness.”
Reno nuzzles my temple. “I think every adult has forgotten their phone charger at least once. That’s nothing to get upset about.”
I nod against his neck. “That’s when he called me fucking stupid.”
The man I’m sitting on lets out a string of curses that would offend an entire ship of sailors. Then he eases me back and cups my face, his eyes warm on top of the anger he must be feeling.
