He stared into my eyes and I let him. Then I looked back at the game. Then I experienced a miracle and that miracle was the fact that I didn’t get crushed under the weight of the full understanding I never, ever let myself comprehend that Ronnie Rodriguez was a pimp, a dealer, a loser, selfish, morally void and just plain stupid. He may have started out loving me but the minute he decided to piss his future away when he f**ked up in Indiana, he stopped loving me or anyone and I was blind, in love and wanted so badly to belong to something, anything, anyone, I never let him go.

“I’m an idiot,” I whispered to the game.

“You’re human,” Walker said to me, voice firm and I looked back at him to see he was reclined again against the headboard.

I tipped my head to the side. “So, no sympathy for Ronnie for making f**ked up decisions, but me, I’m just human?”

“You loved him and didn’t want to give up on him. That is not wrong. He didn’t love you and didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. That is wrong.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t jive, Ty.”

“Oh yeah. It does,” he returned. “Think I explained I have a dick. Think I told you what I’d do if your pu**y was mine. I was f**kin’ up and you weren’t givin’ up on me, I hope to Christ I’d be the type of man who’d pull my head outta my ass and earn that devotion. Makes him worse, he didn’t and left you to the wolves. But you givin’ that devotion, that isn’t wrong.”

“It was stupid.”

“So, you know when the limit’s up on love?” he asked and I felt my chest depress as the profound weight of his question hit me.

“No,” I whispered.

“Right. No. No one does. Not you. Not me. No one. You loved him, you believed in him, far’s you were concerned, he didn’t take those hits, the day after, he coulda got his head outta his ass and done right by you. You held onto that belief. Nothin’ wrong with that except the fact that he never manned up and that’s on him not on you.”

It was my turn to stare at him and I did this trying to come to terms with the fact that he was sage.

Then I told him. “I think I’m done sharing.”

To that, he muttered, “I bet.”

And to that, I replied, “Your turn.”

He jerked up his chin and then stated immediately, “I’m thirty-six. Never been married. I’m a licensed automotive mechanic… or I was. My Dad’s alive, a drunk and an ass**le. My Mom’s alive and a bitch ‘cause her husband’s a drunk. Or maybe he’s a drunk because she’s a bitch. Whatever, they define dysfunction and I been livin’ with that shit since I had memories. My Dad’s parents hated my Mom and died doin’ it. They had reason. My Mom’s parents returned the favor with my Dad but their reasons, in the beginning, were different and total bullshit. They’re alive and I had not one thing to do with them when I was a kid, their choice, and not when I grew up either and that choice was mine. I got a younger brother who’s a pain in everyone’s ass. He’s thirty-three and been married four times, got five kids and my guess, he marries women and makes babies ‘cause he gets off on bein’ a pain in the ass and wants to spread that shit around far’s he can. Good news is, he moved to Los Angeles and that proved far enough away, his talent with being a pain in the ass didn’t reach. I grew up in Carnal, Colorado and I just got done doin’ a nickel for a crime I didn’t commit in a state I never stepped foot in until I was extradited there to stand trial.”

Then he stopped talking.

I waited.

He shared no more.

Then I asked, “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“I shared more than you,” I pointed out.

“How you figure that?”

“Okay, I didn’t share more but mine was more personal and included me coming to terms with something I’ve been avoiding coming to terms with for nearly twenty years. Those terms are uneasy terms and I’m still processing but still. You shared a lot and some of it was big, as in way big, but there was no detail and hence that’s not it.”

“Said give and take, didn’t say it would be equal. You picked, I picked. That’s fair.”

It was not.

And because it wasn’t, I asked, “You didn’t commit the crime you served time for?”

“Nope.”

“What happened?”

His eyes moved directly to the game.

“Ty,” I called and his eyes came back to me. “What happened? How could you –?”

“What’d I say?” he cut me off to ask.

“What?”

“What’d I say?” he repeated.

“About what?”

He held my eyes. Then, low and more rumbling than normal, he stated, “That’s it.”

And that, obviously, was it.

“Next time we play this game, you get to go first,” I declared and then watched with intense fascination as his lips curved up the minutest bit.

Then they uncurved and he muttered, “That’s fair too.”

Then his head turned to the TV.

I got off the bed and went to the champagne.

* * * * *

Ty

Walker’s eyes moved from the TV to Lexie.

She was curled on her side facing him, hands under her cheek, knees tucked nearly to her middle, still wearing her classy but sexy pink dress but she’d finally taken off the classy but sexy shoes. Her eyes were closed. She was out.

He studied her thinking she was probably the only woman he’d ever known in his vast experience of women who could pull off classy and sexy while being married by Liberace.

Actually, truth of it was, she was the only woman he’d ever known who could pull off classy and sexy at all.

Then he studied her thinking that Ronnie Rodriguez was one serious dumb f**k and this was not evidenced by the fact that he lost the sweet life God saw fit to grant him through providing him with immense talent on a basketball court. But instead, it was evidenced by the fact that the classy, sexy pu**y lying asleep at his side in a king-size bed in Vegas was lying asleep at his side in a king-size bed in Vegas and not curled into a living, breathing Ronnie Rodriguez who didn’t spend every ounce of energy earning the privilege of having the classy, sexy pu**y right then lying asleep at Ty Walker’s side.

On that thought, he moved off the bed, went to the table and grabbed the tray on which Lexie had stacked their used dishes. While walking to the door, something caught his attention, his head turned; he looked into the bathroom and stopped.