Page 24 of No Interest in Love

Next night she came to my place. I didn’t really know much about her. Not where she worked or if she had siblings or whatever. I didn’t think I’d see her after we had our fun. Maybe in the hallways here and there.

The “fling” lasted for about two months. Till that last night I spent with her. Right in the middle of sex, her eyes opened and locked with mine. I remember thinking,She has green eyes.Dark green. And in the two months of sleeping with her and the month of flirting before that, I’d never noticed what color her eyes were.

My hips stopped. My release was long forgotten, and something crushed against my beating heart and pumping lungs. And I realized what a giant jackass I was. I had avoided holding hands, kissing her anywhere that wouldn’t lead to sex, or calling and talking on the phone for hours. Those were couple-like things. I didn’t want that. I wanted Barney Stinson’s life while I was still young and still had that going for me. I didn’t want her finding out about my family, my past, the other girls I’d been with. I didn’t want to share anything with her because that’s what comes with a relationship. The thought of it scared the shit out of me. It sounded ridiculous, but there was always this fear of rejection idling in the back of my head. What if she found out I was slow in the head? What if she started to pity me? And even though I’d never done the couple-like things, I realized right then, staring into her green eyes, that she sawmeas way more than I saw her.

Then she opened her kiss-swollen lips and said the three words I’d never heard from any of the girls I’d been with. The three words I never want to hear again. The three words that ended our relationship before it started…

Because I didn’t love her back.

And just like it did in the car earlier today, my life flashed before my eyes. So I pulled out, neither one of us getting the relief we went in for. I ran a sweaty hand over my face, muttering curses under my breath. The bed shook, and I knew she was crying. Damn it, shecried. She cried so hard I felt like I was drowning in it. She tugged the bedsheet out from under my ass and covered her chest, and I refused to look at her face. I refused because I was a dick and a coward.

“You don’t have to say it back,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to…Please don’t freak out.”

But I was freaking out. I don’t do love, and all the women I’d slept with ran through my head and I wondered how many I’d hurt, how many didn’t really feel the same way I did—unattached or indifferent—and I dropped my hand from my face and said, “We shouldn’t see each other for a while.”

“What?”

“Damn it, Penny, I’m sorry. But…I don’t do relationships. I don’t do love. And I can’t keep it going with someone who hopes that I’ll love them back.”

“So I was just…a…”

“Notch in the bedpost.” And ten thousand pounds of guilt dropped into the pit of my stomach with the honest words. “I’m sorry.”

She yelled then.Screamed. And I let her. I let her chuck my clothes at me. I let her push me off the bed. I let her cry and break right in front of me, and I didn’t do a damn thing because she was giving me what I deserved. I deserved a hell of a lot more.

She left me standing in the apartment hallway stark naked with my clothes at my feet. I headed down the hall to the apartment I shared with Landon at the time, tossing on jeans and slumping down on the couch. I downed the entire six-pack we had in our fridge (Landon gave me shit for that one), and then Liz dropped by. The first time I’d met her, and she caught me watching some chick flick and babbling about how I didn’t understand why the hell people wanted to fall in love. I passed out in her lap after telling her that she had nice legs. (Not one of my finer moments.)

It was the last time I slept with someone without telling them what I wanted out of it first.

“Um, you still with me?” Shay asks, eyes flicking in my direction. She blinks and reaches up through the neck hole on the large T-shirt to swipe her hair from her face.

“Someone got hurt,” I answer as I kick another loose rock along the winding road we’re on. “But it wasn’t me.”

“Hmm,” she murmurs thoughtfully, then suddenly pushes around me. “I am so getting this one.”

I let her take it, still trying to shake my head free of Penny. Shay spins on her heel, walking backward, waving her hands, and jumping up and down. The trucker looks like he’s about to swerve around her crazy ass, but then the most amazing sound of screeching brakes rings across the road.

“Yes!” she shouts, turning around with the widest smile I’ve ever seen from her. It pulls up to her eyes, shows off the whites of her teeth, and gives my stomach another pounding…but a good one this time.

“Come on,” I say, dragging my carry-on across the road. I snatch her sleeve and lead her along the side of the semi. The driver sticks his head out the blue cab’s passenger side. Relief floods through the tightness in my gut when he tips his hat.

“You gotta be shitting me,” he says, grinning wide. “It’s you.”

“You know me?” I say. Man, that Syfy network has got some reach.

He waves his hand at me. “Not you.Her.”

Shay lifts an eyebrow in my direction before limping a step closer to me. I flex and stand up straight like I’ve suddenly become her bodyguard.

“Elmo Girl.” He makes a face imitating the shot of Shay’s meme. “ ‘Some of us have to make money, asshole!’ That’s you, right?”

I let out a jolting laugh. This guy is better than the last one at least.

Shay huffs out a sigh and turns around to march back to the side of the road. I snatch her arm before she can get anywhere.

“Any chance you got room in there?” I ask, nodding to the giant cab of the semi.

“You guys need a lift?” he asks. Shay tugs out of my grasp and looks me straight in the eye.

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