Page 25 of Finding Romance
“Whatever, but seriously what if she, like, falls for you and shit. You can’t just break her heart,” he says, his laughter dying.
“I won’t. I’m not that heartless,” I protest.
Everyone stops talking and I feel their eyes on me. I look up from the game. “What?”
“I mean, you were trained to kill people,” Bray points out.
“That’s different. That was the military,” I state, trying to keep myself from remembering everything I did during that time period.
“It’s just…she’s, like, real sweet. And also, can’t anyone in this building just have a normal relationship instead of fake dating or practice dating or whatever?” Drew says from my kitchen where he’s mixing drinks. Gray is sitting at my counter and he looks at me for a long moment.
“What?” I ask as I make eye contact with him.
“Do you like her?” he questions.
Oh, fuck no. I’m not playing that game.
“I don’t like women. I fuck women and that’s it. No more relationships. I don’t have time for that shit,” I say, but the words seem hollow because deep down, I know that’s not true.
“I think Allison really fucked you up,” Bray states, his eyes staying focused on our game. “On your right.”
I put my head back in the game and don’t answer him. He’s not wrong. My last ex did fuck me up. I was dealing with a lot of PTSD issues post my injury while serving. She eventually said I was too fucked up from everything in my past and she needed someone who wasn’t a lifelong fixer-upper project.
“Doesn’t matter,” I mutter.
“It does. You deserve better,” Bray says.
“He’s right,” Hutch agrees. “I know you got this tough-military, mysterious-cybersecurity, gym-rat thing going on”—he motions to my body—“but I’m pretty sure beneath your candied hard shell, you are all gooey on the inside.”
“Dude, that was some poetic shit,” Drew teases.
Hutch glares at him. “I’m not a Longfellow, OK? But you know what I mean.”
“Kase, just don’t rule out making yourself happy. You’re allowed to be happy,” Drew says.
“Speaking of happy, where’s Vito?” I ask, deciding we need to end this conversation about my nonexistent love life.
“He is back in Italy,” Drew says.
We all pause and look over at him.
“Come on, guys. We all knew that the Italian Stallion was going to have to return to his mother country after he finished his graduate program,” Drew says trying to be light-hearted but I see right through that shit.
“Drew, man, I’m sorry. Do you think you could go see him?” I ask, feeling bad for my friend. He’d been dating that guy for almost eight months.
“Nah. I live here. He lives on the other side of the world. We had great times, but it’s over,” Drew states. He turns to Hutch.
“What about Jocelyn?” he asks.
Hutch coughs. “What? What about her?”
“I see the way you two are always talking. What’s going on there?” he presses.
“Nothing. She’s just nice and we chat sometimes. Am I not allowed to be friends with girls?” he says defensively.
“You are, but Jocelyn is a very pretty girl,” Bray states.
“Like you have room to talk. You practically are married to Carly and yet you won’t just seal the deal. Seriously, I could cut the sexual tension between you two with a knife,” Hutch says as we all look at Bray.
