Page 24 of Kill Your Darlings

His eyes, green as the waves pounding the sand, flickered.It hit home, I think, but he hardened his jaw.“I like being with you.And I did want—for a long time I hoped maybe there would be more.”

My heart was slamming against my ribs in heavy thuds.If I’d been hooked to a cardiac monitor, I think alarm bells would have been going off.I could almost hear the panicked jangle of my emotions, like windchimes caught in a hurricane.I didn’t want to hear what he was going to say.I wanted to walk away.But I couldn’t move.Couldn’t speak.

“But there’s something…”

Wrong with you.

Those were the words he was looking for.

What he said instead was, “…going on with you.It isn’t anything new.I realized it a long time ago.At first, I thought you were just very reserved.Then I thought it was hard for you to trust.That you’d been hurt.I told myself you had a fear of intimacy.But it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

I said tightly, “You tell me, Dr.Phil.”

He didn’t bite.“We were together for almost four days and you never once mentioned your father had died the week before.I know you weren’t close, but there should have been some reaction.”

“How would you know, a week after the fact, what reaction I had?”

“You also didn’t mention you’d been in California for his funeral.We’d been talking about seeing more of each other, seeing where this…friendship might lead.”

“That trip wasbefore,” I protested.“Before we talked about any of that.”

In fairness, we hadn’t even really talked aboutthatin any practical sense.We’d just sort of agreed that we both wanted more and that Monterey might be the time to explore some of those possibilities.

“I know.”He seemed genuinely apologetic—but also absolutely adamant.“I’ve been trying to figure out how to put it into words without— What I’m trying to say is, I’ve known—felt—for a long time that something isn’t right.Finding out about your father’s death crystallized it for me.”

I made a sound of disbelief.

“My instinct is you’re…hiding something.And I’m too old to wake up and find myself in a-aDatelinespecial.”

I think it was random, a shot in the dark, a little flicker of black humor.Or maybe it really was a cop—former cop’s—instinct?

But it hit home, hit the target dead center.Bullseye.

I couldn’t move a muscle, couldn’t breathe for a moment.

No small part of my horror was the belated understanding of what it would have meant to drag someone else—to have dragged Finn—into the mess I found myself in.

I guess I’d gotten away with it for so long, I’d started believing I really had escaped.The risk to someone else hadn’t occurred to me until Finn articulated it.But yes.If—and now it was feeling more likewhen—the truth about Dom’s death came out, the wrecking ball wouldn’t just hit me.It would smash into whoever was sharing my life.I didn’t want that.Would never have been okay with that.I would never knowingly have done anything to hurt Finn.

As Finn stared at me, realization slowly dawned on his face.He looked stunned.And then aghast.

He said incredulously, “I was thinking more on the lines of secret wife.”

“No, you weren’t.”

His voice dropped; I couldn’t hear it over the crash of waves hitting the shore.But I saw his lips form soundless words, “What the hell, Keiran?”

I had no answer.What could I say?To Finn, of all people.

The idea thatwewere going to build some kind of Happily Ever After?I must have been out of my mind.

I could feel a weird smile forming.It wasn’t humor.I don’t know what it was aside from an inappropriate response to extreme nervous tension.But I could see Finn’s eyes getting darker and bleaker.

“Is this funny to you?”he asked.

I turned and walked away.

Chapter Seven

---