Bared to You

anything
else.”
He laughed as we stepped into the elevator. “I
know that feeling.”
As we rode up, silence descended. It was
weighted.
“Everything all right?” I asked him.
“Well…” Trey adjusted the sling of his
backpack. “Cary’s just seemed a little off the last
few days.”
“Oh?” I bit my lower lip. “In what way?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I just feel like
maybe something’s up with him and I’m missing
what it is.”
I thought of the blonde and winced inwardly.
“Maybe he’s stressed about the Grey Isles job and
he doesn’t want to bother you with it. He knows
you’ve got your hands full with your job and
school.”
The tension in his shoulders softened. “Maybe
that’s it. It makes sense. Okay. Thank you.”
I let us in to the apartment and told him to make
himself at home. Trey headed to Cary’s room to
drop his stuff, while I went to the phone to check
the voice mail.

---

A shout from down the hallway had me reaching
for the phone for a different reason, my heart
thudding with thoughts of intruders and imminent
danger. More yelling followed, with one voice
clearly belonging to Cary.
I exhaled in a rush, relieved. With the phone in
my hand, I ventured to see what the hell was going
on. I was nearly run over by Tatiana rounding the
hallway corner still buttoning her blouse.
“Oops,” she said, with an unapologetic grin.
“See ya.”
I couldn’t hear the door shut behind her over
Trey’s shouting.
“Fuck you, Cary. We talked about this! You
promised!”
“You’re blowing this out of proportion,” Cary
barked. “It’s not what you think.”
Trey came storming out of Cary’s bedroom in
such a rush that I plastered myself to the hallway
wall to get out of his way. Cary followed, with a
sheet slung around his waist. As he passed me, I
shot him a narrow-eyed glance that earned me a
fuck-off middle finger.
I left the two men alone and escaped into my
shower, angry at Cary for once again ruining
something good in his life. It was a pattern I kept
hoping he’d break, but he couldn’t seem to kick it.
When I came out to the kitchen a half hour later,
the stillness in the apartment was absolute. I
focused on cooking dinner, deciding to go with a
pork roast and new potatoes with asparagus, one
of Cary’s favorite dinners, in case he was home
for dinner and needed some cheering up.
The sight of Trey stepping into the hallway while
I was putting the roast in the oven surprised me,
and then it made me sad. I hated to see him leave
looking flushed, disheveled, and crying. My pity
turned to fierce disappointment when Cary joined

---

me in the kitchen with the scent of male sweat and
sex clinging to him. He shot me a scowl as he
passed me on his way to the wine fridge.
I faced him with my arms crossed. “Screwing a
heartbroken lover on the same sheets he’s just
caught you cheating on isn’t going to make things
better.”
“Shut up, Eva.”
“He’s probably hating himself right now for
giving in.”
“I said shut the fuck up.”
“Fine.” I turned away from him and focused on
seasoning the potatoes to put in the oven with the
roast.
Cary grabbed wineglasses out of the cupboard.
“I can feel you judging me. Stop it. He wouldn’t be
half as pissed if it’d been a man he caught me
fucking.”
“It’s all his fault, huh?”
“Newsflash: Your love life isn’t perfect either.”
“Low blow, Cary. I’m not going to be your
punching bag over this. You messed up, and then
you made it worse. It’s all on you.”
“Don’t get on your damn high horse. You’re
sleeping with a man who’s going to rape you any
day now.”
“It’s not like that!”
He snorted and leaned his hip against the
counter, his green eyes filled with pain and anger.
“If you’re going to make excuses for him because
he’s sleeping when he attacks you, you’ll have to
make those same excuses for drunks and
druggies. They don’t know what they’re doing
either.”
The truth of his words struck me hard, as did the
fact that he was deliberately trying to wound me.
“You can put down a bottle. You can’t quit
sleeping.”

---

Straightening, Cary opened the bottle he’d
selected and poured two glasses, sliding one
across the counter toward me. “If anyone knows
what it’s like to be involved with people who hurt
you, it’s me. You love him. You want to save him.
But who’s going to save you, Eva? I’m not always
going to be around when you’re with him and he’s
a ticking time bomb.”
“You wanna talk about being in relationships
that hurt, Cary?” I shot back, deflecting him away
from my painful truths. “Did you screw Trey over to
protect yourself? Did you figure you’d push him
away before he had the chance to disappoint
you?”
Cary’s mouth curved bitterly. He tapped his
glass to mine, which still sat on the counter.
“Cheers to us, the seriously fucked up. At least we
have each other.”
He stalked out of the room and I deflated. I’d
known this was coming—the unraveling of
circumstances too good to be true. Contentment
and happiness didn’t exist in my life for more than
a few moments at a time, and they were really only
illusionary.
There was always something hidden. Lying in
wait to spring up and ruin everything.

---

G
ideon arrived just as dinner was coming out of
the oven. He had a garment bag in one hand and
a laptop case in the other. I’d worried that he
would try to go home alone after his session with
Dr. Petersen and was relieved when he’d called
to say he was on his way. Still, when I first opened
the door and saw him on the threshold, a shiver of
unease slid through me.
“Hey,” he said quietly, following me back into
the kitchen. “Smells delicious in here.”
“I hope you’re hungry. There’s a lot of food and
I’ll be surprised if Cary joins us to help eat it all.”
Gideon dropped his stuff on the breakfast bar
and approached me cautiously, his gaze
searching my face as he neared. “I brought some
things with me to stay the night, but I’ll go if you
want. At any time. Just tell me.”
I blew out my breath in a harsh rush, determined
not to let fear dictate my actions. “I want you here.”
“I want to be here.” He paused beside me. “Can

---

I hold you?”
I turned into him and squeezed him hard.
“Please.”
He pressed his cheek against mine and
hugged me close. The embrace wasn’t as natural
and easy as we’d grown used to. There was a
new wariness between us that was different from
anything we’d felt before.
“How are you doing?” he murmured.
“Better now that you’re here.”
“But still nervous.” He pressed his lips to my
forehead. “Me, too. I don’t know how we’re ever
going to fall asleep next to each other again.”
Pulling back slightly, I looked at him. That was
my fear as well, and my earlier conversation with
Cary didn’t help matters.