like that.”
Josh got up and cleared away their empty plates, leaving her implied question unanswered. Mia waited while he put them in the sink. With his back turned, she could see the lines of tension radiating through his shoulders and neck.
She thought about the last thing Andie had said: If you care about him as much as I think you do, you won’t ask him.
Mia did care about him. The thought of causing him more distress kept her from demanding an answer outright.
Finally, he came and sat down again. Forced himself to look her in the eye. “If you ask me, I’ll tell you.” His expression was pained but also resigned. Sadly so.
“I have to ask?”
He nodded.
“You can’t just tell me?”
His jaw clenched. “It’s humiliating.” He lowered his gaze, focusing on a random spot on the table. “Someone I thought I could trust played a cruel trick on me a few years ago. She made something public that should have been between us. Made me a laughingstock.”
Mia’s mind raced through different possibilities, trying to imagine what it could have been. Like a diary or a love letter, Andie had said. But something else.
Nude photos, maybe. Or screenshots of a text conversation. A dirty text conversation.
All the likeliest scenarios seemed to involve sex. When else were we more vulnerable than when we were being intimate with another person? Mia thought about all the celebrity nude leaks, phone hacks, and revenge porn incidents that were forever making the news, and the glee with which people seemed to latch onto the sordid details of someone else’s sex life.
Of course it could have been something else. A secret about himself that he’d shared in confidence. Something that people might hold against him in a closed-minded small town.
Mia had a sudden thought—one she perhaps should have considered sooner. “You’re not gay, are you? Or…something else?” There was a whole spectrum of related possibilities, but she didn’t want to start taking stabs in the dark. “Because it’s fine if you are,” she hastened to add.
Except for the part where I got my hopes up for nothing.
Could she have read him so wrong? Possibly. It seemed like he’d been giving off encouraging signals, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time she’d made that mistake.
He met her eye. “I’m not gay. I wouldn’t be ashamed if that’s what it was.”
“Okay.” Mia tried not to look relieved.
Not barking up the wrong tree after all. Whew.
He’d said it was a “she” who’d betrayed his trust, so her mind leaped to the next logical conclusion. “Was it an ex-girlfriend who did it?”
He nodded. “She got angry when I broke up with her and decided to get revenge in a very public way. Pretty much everyone I know saw it, and people around here have long memories.” The scowl on his face made her stomach clench in sympathy. “Just when I start to think maybe everyone’s finally forgotten about it, someone like Aaron makes sure to remind ’em.”
Mia gave in to the instinct to reach for his hand. “I don’t care what some drunk jerk like that thinks of you.”
Josh let her interlace her fingers with his on the tabletop. “I appreciate that. I know I shouldn’t let it bother me so much, but I guess I’ve got too much pride. It’s hard to face people when you know all they’re thinking about is the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you. So I end up keeping to myself a lot. Too much, probably.”
It tore her heart open to see him so vulnerable and in so much pain. What kind of person could do something like that to him? Mia wasn’t ordinarily prone to homicidal thoughts, but seeing Josh like this engaged her protective instincts and made her want to do brutal, violent things to the woman who’d hurt him.
His eyes fell closed for a second, and when they opened again he seemed more even-keeled. “But I don’t want you to think I’m hiding anything.” He met her gaze steadily. “So I’ll tell you all the sorry details if you want me to.”
Mia didn’t want to know anymore. Not after everything he’d already told her and after seeing how hard it was for him to talk about it. He’d offered to tell her and that was enough of a show of trust. More than enough. She didn’t need him to rip open the wound all over again to satisfy her curiosity.
“Don’t tell me.” She squeezed his hand. “It doesn’t matter