gone, Mercer turned and clapped her hands on my shoulders, giving me a hard shake.
“You really did it. You slept with him, and now he won’t kick you out of the house. I didn’t think you had it in you, Ollie.” She smiled at me as she wiggled my body back and forth. “I think that very handsome boy might bring out the best in you.”
I shifted free of her grasp and frowned at her. “I didn’t sleep with him so he wouldn’t kick me out of his house.” I found the idea kind of appalling now that I’d actually had sex with him for no other reason than I wanted to. Silently, I was chastising myself for even considering it when last Mercer and I spoke.
I didn’t want the moment turned into something that was tainted with cheap manipulation and suspect motivations. I wanted the memory to remain pure and untouched in my mind forever.
Mercer lifted her eyebrows. “Then, why did you? You aren’t the type to jump into bed with someone on a whim.”
I sighed and shoved my hands through my hair. The damp curls stuck to my fingers, which made the gesture look clumsy and uncoordinated. Which was pretty much how I was feeling at the moment.
“I slept with him because I really wanted to. He makes me feel good. He makes me feel like I matter. He’s the only one who made me feel like I was enough on my own. It’s hard to think straight around him.” And he came after me, not once, but twice today when I tried to run away. I regretted more than anything that I hadn’t done the same for him back in the day. I finally understood what it was like to have someone care enough to come after you when you were headed in the wrong direction. “He makes me feel safe.”
And at the end of the day, that was the reason why I sought him out again and again.
Mercer clicked her tongue. “You might not be using him, but are you sure he doesn’t see you as an easy target? Are you positive he isn’t using you?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. My instincts said Huck had no reason to use me or mess with me. In fact, it would’ve been super easy for him to let me go when I tried to leave this morning. But he had sharp edges and hidden agendas now that hadn’t been part of who he was back when I knew him best, so there was always the possibility he was playing me. Even if that was the case, I’d rather lose to him than win with anyone else.
Instead of answering, I deflected the question back to her. “So, you’ve been MIA again. Did you get things sorted with your new guy? Did you talk to him about the issues you were having?” Her love life might be messy, but it was bound to be less complicated than mine. “You met Huck. How about I get a chance to meet your mystery man? You said he wanted to tag along last time we hung out.” I lifted my eyebrows at her. “I promise not to embarrass you the way you embarrassed me just now.”
She snorted and stepped out of the backroom, flipping on the lights in the rest of the store as she went. “I wanted to see how Huck would react when he was on the spot. That boy is ice cold, though. I can’t imagine anything that would rattle him.”
He’d been pretty shaken up when he heard just how bad things had gotten with Sawyer, but I didn’t tell her that because I realized she was trying to flip the conversation back to focus on me. She obviously didn’t want to talk about whatever was going on with her new man. It wasn’t like her to be so secretive.
Her evasion made me worry even more about how she was really doing.
I shot a hand out and caught her arm. This time when her bracelets jangled, they sounded less cheery and more ominous. She pulled free and frowned at me. “Think you need to be worrying about what you’re going to do and not worry so much about what I’m doing. After all, this is far from my first relationship, and we both know you have absolutely no clue what it is you’re doing with Huck.”
I couldn’t hold back a startled gasp. Mercer never spoke like that to anyone,