Page 83 of Broken

It’s not a question, it’s an order. More like a request, she’s not the bossy type. Am I ready to share what she wants to know? It’s one thing I never talk about. Not even with the guys at the shop. They didn’t know me when Gwen was alive. Phoenix is the only one aware of my family situation.

Do I want to tell her? For the right reasons, not to get into her pants for an ulterior motive.

Snap decision made. “Ask me something.”

“You’re infuriating.”

“And I’ll make no apologies for that. You won’t get this pass again.”

Her body shifts toward me. It’s on the tip of her tongue to ask. The indecision is odd. She should be blurting out the question most women in her position would want the answer to.

“Are you so closed off because of what happened with her?”

That is deeper than straight up asking who the woman in the sketch pad is. Drawing in a couple of breaths I make a choice.

“Partly.”

Calli nods, her eyes probing. It’s not the answer she was hoping for, but she asked the wrong question if she wanted me to open up.

“It doesn’t matter what happened with her,” she says slowly. “It matters what it does to us, you,” she corrects.

That is an interesting slip of the tongue.

“We can’t be defined by our exes,” she clarifies.

Oh right, she’s talking about her shithead ex. And now she thinks Gwen is an ex who made it hard for me to trust people. Calli can’t be blamed for that. To anyone looking in, it’s exactly how it appears.

Instead of probing any further she finishes the rest of her tea and drops the cup into the trash can beside the bench.

As she shifts, the drawing falls out of her purse and onto the bench between us. It half unravels, and she snatches it up to stop me seeing.

Too late, I saw the hand with the familiar ink and the slope of my jaw line.

She drewme? For most of the time I was watching her draw, I thought she didn’t look in my direction once. Okay, now I understand her desire to see my sketches.

For a long moment, I stare at her. She folds up the picture and shoves it back in her purse, then fidgets with the strap and keeps her eyes firmly away from me.

“You’re not going to show me?”

“Nope,” she side-eyes me.

“You know I saw what it was.”

She hums in response.

“You drew me.” Another death glare. “Have I been playing on your mind?”

“Not in the slightest. It was just a doodle.”

“A doodle. That is a very realistic and true to life doodle.”

“You barely saw it,” she huffs.

“I saw enough.”

“Shut up,” she slaps my thigh with the back of her hand.

Without thinking, I grab her hand and pull hard enough so she slides across the bench. She lets out a little squeal of surprise but doesn’t fight me as her body presses into my side. I hold our hands up between us, a minimal and ineffective barrier. Calli is breathing heavily enough that her chest is heaving, brushing the back of my hand.

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