So it was me who started laying it out.
“You mistook me yesterday,” I stated, interrupting him. “That wasn’t about me thinking you’d do what Hop did. That was about me confronting something that was shocking and difficult to process. It was unfortunate you called seconds after it happened when I’d had no time to think about it. But then you pushed me on it when I tried not to talk about it and I had no choice but to process it on the spot, not on my time. So I did what I do. I got pissed about it.” I took in a breath and finished quietly, “You shouldn’t have pushed me, Tack.”
His hand moved to my cheek so his thumb could glide along my lips the entire time his eyes didn’t leave mine but he didn’t say a word.
That, I supposed, was an apology but it also wasn’t.
So be it.
I kept talking.
“I grew up in Ozzie and Harriet’s house. My Mom’s a homemaker and bakes pies. We went to church every Sunday. My Dad believes in God, the sanctity of marriage, football and shoot ‘em ups, in that order. I might have broken free from something that wasn’t entirely me to live my own life but I have never, nor did I ever expect, to see two people ha**ng s*x right before my eyes. That was shocking. I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“From here on in, darlin’, you go to my room in the Compound only with me.”
“It’s too late, Tack. What was seen cannot be unseen.”
“Red –”
“And it was her.” I felt his body still as I felt the sting of tears in my nose and I took in a deep breath to control them before I went on, “You don’t get how big that was, that it was her, because I didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“That I fell in love with you during tequila and roast pork sandwiches.”
His big frame gave a small jerk, his eyes flashed and his fingers tensed on my face but I kept going.
“It’s stupid, ridiculous actually, I know it. And I don’t care since I also know deep in my heart that it happened. Black and white, my whole life it seems I lived in black and white. I met you, suddenly all around me there was color.” I sucked in breath and whispered, “Then you kicked me out of bed.”
His face went soft, his eyes went warm and his head dipped closer to me as he growled a low, rough, quiet, “Baby.”
I shook my head. “I fell in love with you and you didn’t let me spend the night. You didn’t even kiss me good-bye. And a day later, I saw you with her and you’d spent the night with her and you were kissing her good-bye.”
“Fuckin’ Christ, baby,” he whispered, his hand flattening against the side of my head.
“That didn’t sting, Tack, it hurt.”
“Tyra, darlin’, I had no clue.”
“I know you didn’t. That doesn’t mean that wasn’t what I was feeling. And seeing her yesterday at all, much less what I saw, was going to be unpleasant. Circumstances and her being her just made it worse.”
“She’s gone.”
I nodded my head. “Yeah. But what’s done can’t be undone either.”
“Tyra –”
“I’ve had five lovers.”
Tack blinked and his head went back slightly.
Then he asked, “What?”
“Five. Carefully chosen. Men I could work with. Men I thought, since I knew they weren’t perfect, they would become that.”
“No one’s perfect, baby,” he interjected.
“Please listen to me,” I whispered and he slightly lifted his chin to communicate he acquiesced to my request so I continued. “I promised myself, as a little girl, that I would settle for nothing less than my dream man. Nothing less. It was crazy. I’ve thought on it and I don’t even know why I vowed that to myself. I just did. Girls do that, sure. Then the reality of life seeps in and they get over it. I never did. My dream man or nothing. So I looked for him my whole life. I was going to live that dream, I would settle for nothing less. So I had nothing until that night at Ride when I met you.”