Page 12 of Just the Wrong Twin

Nate flicked a glance her way. “I’m done with compromising, Sonia. No freak shows, no sympathy sex and no pity fucks. No more. So, thanks, but no thanks. You can’t fix the fact that Katia was a jerk. I don’t expect you to really understand and that’s okay…”

“Because you think I’ve never had sympathy sex, and that’s where you’re wrong,” she said, interrupting him furiously. Nate’s eyes widened but he didn’t say anything. “Let me tell you about sympathy sex,” she said, giving him a poke in the arm. It was like jabbing a rock. “When it’s a pity fuck, your partner never looks at you. He never meets your eyes and he never looks at whatever part of your body he finds repulsive. If he finds all of you repulsive, he closes his eyes. He doesn’t call you by name, and you might as well be—” she made a sound of frustration “—an inflatable doll for all the interest he has in your pleasure. And when he’s done and he leaves, you feel filthy and used. You want to take that twenty minutes back or scrub it off, but you can’t and so you feel awful about yourself. You hate yourself almost as much as he hates you. That loathing is what started it, after all. That’s why you allowed it to happen, but sex is supposed to make you feel better and pity sex does exactly the opposite. It makes you feel worse.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes and Sonia knew she’d said too much. She felt stupid then and turned to look out the window, blinking back tears and wishing she was home already.

She’d screwed that up beautifully.

“Okay, you do understand,” Nate said finally. “I don’t know how that can be, but that’s exactly what it’s like.”

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” she replied tightly.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He shook his head but kept his attention focused on the road. “Just because I can’t imagine a place in which you wouldn’t have your pick of every guy there doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.” He stopped at a light and looked at her, peeking over his sunglasses, and her heart melted when his voice dropped low. “I’m sorry, Sonia. I was wrong.”

Sonia didn’t know what to say. The car’s engine purred, sending a vibration through her seat that did nothing to keep her mind out of the gutter. Her place was less than two blocks away. She wasn’t going to invite him in again, not yet, so she changed the subject.

“You’re different,” she said when the light changed.

“No,” Nate said without looking at her. “I’m finally the same again.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s the snap.”

Sonia still didn’t understand. “What’s the snap?”

“It’s that moment when you’ve had enough, when you snap.” He snapped his fingers to punctuate that, then turned left. “You bend and bend, trying to accommodate something or someone, then finally you just can’t do it anymore. Snap!”

Sonia recognized that situation. “What were you trying to accommodate?”

“Ending up back in my uncle’s store again, just like Flatiron Five Fitness had never happened to me. The job at the club was so awesome that I was blown away to get paid to do it. But then there was the pandemic and the club closed.”

“And you didn’t have a job?”

“Oh, I had a job. I went back to work at my uncle’s hunting goods store. It was where I was working before F5F. But that wasn’t where I wanted to be. If I was going to circle back, I wanted to circle back to before I lost my hand. I wanted to know that the world was mine for the taking again and that every day would be a new adventure. I wanted to be waiting to be called up for training for the Marine Raiders and counting the minutes.”

That was what he meant by being finally the same again. Sonia wished then that she’d known him before he enlisted.

“I was grateful for the job with Uncle Jed, but I wanted more. Even when he talked about training me to take over the business, I felt trapped instead of happy. I had to do something to change the situation. Jax called around then wanting me to make instructional videos or host a podcast but that’s not for me. I asked her what Pierce was doing. Silver Fox Security. I just had to hear about it to have the snap.” He nodded with satisfaction. “Getting this job with Pierce is a dream come true.”

Nate was so decisive that he seemed like a different person. He parked at the curb in front of the brownstone where Sonia had her studio apartment and left the engine running. “Home sweet home,” he said, then swung out of the car. He opened her door for her. “Take care, Sonia.”

She took his hand and got out of the car, but didn’t walk away. Not yet. She had to try to make it right. “You were offended when I said you were sweet.”

He looked at her over his sunglasses, his gaze intent. “It’s kind of dismissive, don’t you think? It definitely means that the person in question isn’t of real interest.”

Sonia shook her head. “But sweet and hot is an irresistible combination, like chocolate and peanut butter.”

“Despite the fact that you’ve been resisting just fine.” Nate held up his hand, making a zero with his finger and thumb. “Zero openings in two years, Sonia. That’s a pretty good indication of disinterest. And now suddenly you want me to believe it’s all changed.” He shook his head. “I’m not that dumb. Maybe it’s not about Katia, but it’s not about me either.”

“But it wasn’t disinterest,” she said, knowing she had to tell him the truth. “It was fear.”

Nate took off his sunglasses and really looked at her. He was deadly serious as he studied her. “Fear? How is that even possible?” He held up a hand. “Wait. Ten minutes ago, I would have said you couldn’t have been afraid of anything that would happen, but then you explained sympathy sex to me. What could you possibly be afraid of?”

“Nothing,” she said and believed it in that moment with all her heart. “Not anymore.”

She reached for his shoulder but Nate took a step back. “Well, good,” he said gently. “I’ll get your meal kit from the trunk.”

Sonia didn’t want him to leave, but she didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected him to turn her down and her confidence had taken a big hit. Nate closed the trunk and returned, one meal kit in his hand.

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