After a round of hugs with all the women, Bill helped her into the truck.
“Are you all right, Laura?”
He hadn’t been able to hear what they talked about from his table. “Yeah. I’m just…thinking.”
“Any new memories?”
“No. Just a couple of answers.”
Rob arrived home from work early Friday morning. Apparently he normally had more days off in a row, but he wanted to play catch-up covering for everyone who’d covered for him while Bill was still in town to help keep an eye on her.
She rolled over and draped her arm around him after he’d gotten a shower and climbed into bed with her.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course, sweetheart.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Mac and Cris?”
She felt his body go rigid. “Who told you about Mac and Cris?”
“I had brunch with the girls yesterday morning. I had extra names running around in my head that I couldn’t reconcile.”
His body relaxed a little as he let out a breath he’d been holding. “They’re our friends. We love them. We don’t care what they do in their bedrooms.”
She sat up and snapped on a bedside lamp. “Exactly. So why didn’t you tell me about them?”
He looked exhausted. For a moment she felt guilty about slamming him with that right then, but she didn’t want to let it wait and fester inside her.
“Sweetheart, I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know how you’d react.”
“Did I react badly when I knew them before?”
“No, of course not. You love them.”
“Then why did you think I’d react badly now? Am I really that different?”
His hesitation in answering was all she needed. She threw the sheet aside and started to get up but he caught her hand. “Laur, please. I’m sorry. I just was so happy to have you awake, and then when you didn’t have any memories, I was afraid to overwhelm you.”
“Did you ever stop to think that maybe if you’d told me about them sooner, maybe it would have triggered more memories?”
From the look on his face, it was obvious he hadn’t.
“When Bill took me by the house, I had some vague memories about people coming to help us. Maybe if I’d known who all those people were, maybe it might have triggered something.”
She yanked her hand free and started for the bathroom.
He got up and rounded the bed faster than she could move and stopped her.
“Honey, I’m sorry.”
“What else haven’t you told me, huh?” She reached up to shove him out of her way but it was like trying to push granite. “What else are you hiding from me? How the hell am I supposed to trust you if I think you’re hiding stuff?”
His eyes widened in shock. She suspected she couldn’t have slapped him and elicited that kind of reaction.
He took a step back. “You don’t trust me?”
Part of her screamed yes, that she trusted him with her life and her heart.
But she was mad. Mad and frustrated at life, and at her stubborn memory, and the guy who’d done this to her, and that Rob hadn’t told her everything up front.
And he was, unfortunately, her target.
“How am I supposed to trust you when I have to find out something like that from people who are my friends? Something that the man I was supposed to marry should have told me!” She stepped around him and went into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and locking it before she let the tears fall, hot and heavy.
He stood on the other side of the door, knocking. “Laur, please, sweetheart, you have to understand—”
“Go away, Rob. I’m too angry to talk to you right now.” All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry.
He tried a few more times to talk to her until she finally screamed at him to go away.
Silence.
She didn’t know how long she stayed in there, but she went ahead and took her shower once she got the tears out of her system. When she finally unlocked the door and came out, Rob wasn’t in the bedroom.
She walked out into the living room and found Bill sitting, bleary-eyed, at the table with a cup of coffee.
“Where’s Rob?”
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing since he asked me to make sure I didn’t let you go anywhere by yourself, and that he had his bag with him, and that he looked like shit warmed over, and that you were screaming at him loud enough to wake me up that he probably went to the house.”
She stared at him. “He…left?”
“Yeah. He left.” He looked up at her. “Want to tell me what the hell?”
She slumped down into a chair across from him and told him.
He let out a sound that clued her in before he even spoke that he wasn’t on her side on this one. “I can understand you being aggravated at him, but he didn’t deserve for you to treat him the way you did.”
“He lied to me!”
“No, he didn’t. He just didn’t tell you. Just like I didn’t tell you about all the times you flew off the handle about stupid shit when you were a teenager and acted like an idiot.” He arched an eyebrow at her.
Heat filled her face, but she didn’t answer.
“He didn’t tell you the same way I didn’t tell you that you and Dad used to have lots and lots of conversations about your temper over the years when you were growing up, and even past college. He didn’t tell you the same way I didn’t tell you that, up until you met Rob, you were a pretty miserable person. Like you had a huge chip on your shoulder.”
She slumped farther down in her chair. “I did?”
“Yeah. Like you were trying to prove yourself all the time.”
She studied her hands. “If I was so bad,” she muttered, “why do people even want to be friends with me?”
“Because people love you, Laura. As aggravating as you can be at times, you are ten times as generous and loving and fun to be around. You have your moments. We all do. In other words, you’re as human as the rest of us.”
She didn’t have a reply.
He eventually spoke again. “The reason I love Rob is because I could see how good he is for you. How for the first time in your life you seemed to be relaxed and able to actually enjoy all of life and not drive-drive-drive yourself off a friggin’ cliff. He’s good for you. He gives you a sense of stability, a calm I’ve never seen you have in your life. Before…this, you looked like you’d finally found peace with him.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. So I can forgive him for trying to not overwhelm you with stuff you might not be able to process. Especially a fact like that. I think you should, too.”
“What if there’s more he hasn’t told me?”
“Guess what? There’s probably a lot he hasn’t told you. We can’t regurgitate everything that’s happened in your life or between us and you.”
“I meant holding back deliberately.”
“Like how you can be a pushy, judgmental bitch when your feelings get hurt?”
She glared at him.
He let out a snort. “Oh, don’t give me that look, sis.” He picked up his empty mug and headed back to the kitchen. “If looks could kill, believe me, you would have put me in my grave before you were ten.”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Rob drove to the house, too tired to even think about the fight. He hated himself for not telling her sooner.
He also hated himself for not telling her about the BDSM.
Unfortunately, that was a very complex topic, and involved far more than simply explaining away friends’ unusual relationship dynamics.