Page 92 of Nothing to Deny

“About us. If you want me to tell him about Squires, I will. If you don’t want him to know, I won’t tell him. It’s your choice. Though, you should know, he always checks out the guys I’m dating. I don’t know how he does it, but he finds out things even I don’t know sometimes. That’s not to say we should tell him, I just want you to know there’s a chance he finds out either way.”

“We have to get through the vacation first.” Implying they may not be together at the end of it? That maybe there would be nothing to tell Truman? Shh, her stupid paranoia again. “If things go off with Kelly and Nickson—”

“You want to split with Donoghue.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Don’t put you and Donoghue together,” she said because, oddly, it bothered her. “Donaghue and Holly are their own pair, he’s working and she’s paying him, that’s their arrangement, not ours.” Okay, so she was paying, but that wasn’t the point. “If it kicks off and they break up, I don’t know if Kelly will stay, if anyone will stay. We’ll decide together if we’re staying or going.”

Was it reassurance he needed or was he trying to catch her out? More like he was just being the good guy she knew he was and letting her know the option was available.

“Okay. Whatever it is, we stay out of it.”

“Out of it?”

“I don’t want other people in our relationship, screwing with our heads,” he said. “We don’t do it to other people.”

She would never screw with anyone’s head. But, yeah, if she needed it, that was confirmation the Roxie conversation would definitely happen another time. A way, way down the line time.

“Were you friends?”

“Who?”

“You and Nickson?” she asked. “You said he was Squires; does it follow that you…?”

“Worked women together?”

“Not sex.” There would be plenty of his past activities that didn’t need a graphic retelling. If he wanted to tell her, needed to, for whatever reason, she’d listen. Otherwise, those mysteries could remain mysteries. “Did you hang out? Go for a beer? Watch sports? Does he know the twins? Does Conrad?”

“Conrad? Know the twins? No. He knows they exist, hasn’t met them, never will.”

Who would Baer invite to their wedding? Whoa, girl, where had that popped up from? Nowhere in particular, mm hmm, just an observation really. If all his friends were Squires related, would his entire list consist of the twins and Abel?

“You keep both parts of your life separate?” she asked. “Squires in one box and your family in another?”

Wasn’t that complicated? Understandable, yes, though it did make his day-to-day life more difficult, that was obvious.

“What I do could hurt the twins,” he said, his voice calm and even. “And if I laid out the full story for Abel, he wouldn’t understand.”

“You think he’d be mad?”

“Mad? Maybe. Not at me though. Knowing the lengths I had to go to—”

“Guilt. You’re worried he would feel guilty that you have to sell yourself to pay the bills.”

“I don’t look at it that way.”

“How do you look at it? I’m not judging, I’m curious. How did it start? I can’t even begin to—how did you find out Squires existed?”

“An agency,” he said. “A legit employment agency. I was going in, and they were giving me work, a lot of physical stuff.” Yeah, because one look at him and anyone could tell he had the strength to do just about anything. “It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t making enough. Bills were coming due. And my mom… I lost it one day, at the agency, not in anger, just frustration, I told her I’d do anything, anything, if it would make me the amount of money I needed. She gave me a card. Under the table, you know?”

“And the rest is history,” she said on a sigh. “Were you nervous? Scared?”

“I can’t say I was totally comfortable. There are times even now that I’m not totally comfortable. It’s just a given, the nature of the job, something I don’t expect to go away.”

If he was a woman, those words would be tragic. As a man, he said them with a resignation, not sadness, just inevitability. Like why should a man ever complain or moan about frequent sex with a parade of different women?

“It honestly breaks my heart that—”

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