Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,17

if you didn’t like it, why didn’t you do something? Say something? I’m a man, not a mind reader. Sure, a guy’s going to … to go for his favorite parts. It’s like a … an amusement park. That’s the point.”

“Nobody’s ever complained,” she said, “because we lied. Ask Kathy. I bet she’d say the same.”

“I’m not asking her anything.” She couldn’t see his face that well, because it was dark, but she could tell he was getting mad. She didn’t make people mad. She made people not be mad.

Except now, apparently.

Mark went on, “You’re just saying that to get me to do what you want. Why would you think that would make me want to marry you? You really don’t know anything about men, do you? We want a woman to be confident enough to … to own her own sexuality.” Something, Jennifer would bet, that he’d read on some men’s website. Something that meant, “You don’t have to do all the work, dude! If she doesn’t get off, well, maybe she didn’t want to!”

She was going to say that. She was. But he was still talking. “We want her to dress sexy when she’s out with us, so all the other guys know what we’ve got and wish they had it, so we can get excited about that. Instead of having her look like she wants to disappear under the table, and not in a good way. Just because you slept around and got pregnant when you were a kid and everybody knows it, that doesn’t mean you can’t look hot ever again or everybody will think you’re still slutty. You know why I don’t take you out? That’s why. You’re fun naked, but you look fat in clothes, and you don’t know how to flirt or make a man feel good, or you’re scared to do it, so why shouldn’t I skip the boring part?”

An older guy had been climbing out of his car at the curb. He’d probably heard every word of that, and Jennifer tried not to wince. She also tried not to hear. She let the words wash over her, started to disappear underneath them, and then remembered. She was supposed to be real. She was supposed to be honest. Most of all, she was supposed to be brave.

“Fine,” she said. “You said it. I said it. I know how you feel now. I’m all done. I’m going home.”

“Jen …” he said. “Wait.”

“No,” she said. “I’m going. I’m gone.” And fled.

Not that brave, no. But she’d broken up with him, hadn’t she? And at least she hadn’t cried.

She didn’t tell Dyma all that. Instead, she said, “I brought up an idea for my future. He thought I was pressuring him to marry me. I never even thought of it, honestly, so I told him so, and we just sort of … ended it.”

“Mom,” her daughter said, “you’ve been going out with him for four years and you never thought about getting married?”

“Well, sure. I mean, when I had the conversation, I didn’t think of it.”

“Oh,” Dyma said. “Well, I guess. So you guys just said, ‘See you later?’ So it really was just friends with benefits? I always think you’re more traditional than that. But you haven’t been all dramatic or anything, so …”

“No. I’m mad. I’m so mad, I can’t even see straight. I’m mad at him, and I’m mad at myself. If that was how he felt, why did I … why did …” She hauled in a breath and thought, Dial it back. She couldn’t. But she also couldn’t tell her daughter that she felt like she’d missed her chance. All her chances. And that now, it might be too late.

Because everything Mark had said about her … was true.

She had eaten ice cream from the carton. Her tears had dripped in there, and she’d thought, You look fat in clothes, eaten another bite of salted caramel, and cried some more.

Quietly, though, because otherwise, she’d wake Dyma. She hated to cry, but when she did, it was always quietly, so she wouldn’t scare her daughter.

Now Dyma would be leaving, and she could cry out loud.

She had to change her life.

She was thinking it, and then she wasn’t, because they had gone around a bend, and right up there, half in and half out of the river, there were wolves.

Right there. Wolves.

She said, “Dyma. Stop.” Keeping her voice low. Urgent. She wanted to grab Dyma’s sleeve, to shove her behind her, but