Page 5 of Forever Yours on Christmas Eve
“That doesn’t tell me much,” he said, the urge inside of him to poke after her almost overpowering. He could almost taste how much he wanted her attention. “Why’d you call it off?”
“His girlfriend posted photos of them on social media.” She sighed, her face dropping as she looked down at her fingers mindlessly running over the lace in her lap. “I won’t be any man’s second choice.”
“Good for you,” he praised. “Though I can’t imagine a man stupid enough to stray when he had you.”
“Thanks,” she said, giving him a sad smile.
“So what are you going to do now?” he asked, tipping up his bottle for the last dregs of his beer.
She shrugged her slim shoulders once again. “I’m really not sure. Go back to school? Try to forget it all happened, I guess.”
“C’mon, you can do better than that,” he goaded. “What’s a bright woman like you got planned forher life?”
“Not much, really,” she said hesitantly. “I mean, I’m set to graduate this June, but I don’t have a job yet. I don’t really want to go home, but I’ve been dragging my feet applying for work.”
That didn’t seem to jive with the woman he saw in front of him. “Why’s that?”
She filled her lungs with a deep breath as her eyes focused away from him. “Just… nothing out there I’d be good at.”
“Why do I have a feeling that’s not true?”
Kelsey’s eyes shot up to him. “What do you mean?”
This time it was his turn to lift a shoulder. “You seem bright to me. On the ball. I have a feeling you know what you want to do with your life, you’re just holding yourself back for some reason.”
One of Sev’s gifts had always been reading people. It was part of the reason he was placed with his unit; his ability to communicate effectively not only with his team, but also with the locals, civilians. Anyone really. He was an effective negotiator and always had a handle on whether things were going well or if they were about to take a turn for the worse.
And he had a feeling that once someone like Kelsey started cracking the shell she hid behind and burst through it to be her true self, there’d be no stopping her.
“I’m holding myself back because I need to do something reliable with my life.”
“Is that what he told ya?” Sev asked bluntly.
By the look of shock on Kelsey’s face at the realization that Sev was spot on, he knew this fiancé of hers hadn’t been treating her well.
Well, at least she realized it.
“It’s not just that…”
He waited for her to finish her thought, but when she didn’t, he figured he’d help her along.
“Let me guess,” he said, setting his empty bottle down on a thick paper coaster. “This guy was the kind who didn’t like to be outshone by anyone. His chief complaints were when he was getting outdoneby his siblings, his classmates, his friends. And he spent the majority of your relationship putting you down, too.”
“He didn’t put me down…”
Once again, as the wheels in her brain began to turn, he simply waited for her to come around.
“I’m going to even go so far as to guess that you’ve dealt with his overgrown man-boy tantrums to the point that you don’t remember how a real man is supposed to treat the woman he’s dating.”
“Now that’s not fair,” she said. “I know exactly how I should be treated.”
“So you… put up with it anyway?”
She sat and bit her lip.Yep, apparently she had.
Sev to the rescue.
“Tell you what,” he proposed, laying his arm on the bar again, and casting a long look at the old jukebox in the corner. “I have a proposition for you. Let’s get you ready for the next guy to come into your life.”
