Wet Part 3 (37 page)

Since the beginning, despite his immature efforts to intimidate her, she’d always refused to show fear, of him or his behavior.
Tough as nails
, he thought, until that moment.

“You saw the email?” he asked after clearing his throat, because shame had kicked him in the gut, but also because he just realized she’d been standing there in the office, behind him, longer than he realized. 

She nodded, and he could tell she was about to choke up. He glanced down in disgrace.

“Rhees, I’m sorry—”

“Stop saying that!”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “I didn’t run off to be with Ginger. She’s a friend, nothing more. I’m sorry for what I put you through, but I did
nawt
run off to resume our relationship—which never really was a relationship. We didn’t break up, because there was nothing to break. We just . . . parted ways.”

“Don’t lie to me. I told you, I saw the email. She said she regretted leaving you—wished she never had.” Rhees sniffed. “And then you couldn’t get back to her fast enough—oh, yeah—you did take the time to smash up everything else I love, like giving me the finger before you left.”

He laughed. He couldn’t help it, but he stopped when Rhees narrowed her eyes at him.

“You apparently didn’t read the entire message.” He tried to lean his forehead against hers, but she turned her head.

“She’s sick,” he spat out.

“No, I’m not! Being assaulted is not an illness . . . and I’m working on it—”

“Ginger!” he blurted. “Ginger is sick!”

He waited for it to sink in, and just like he knew it would, Rhees’ inherent empathy immediately drained every ounce of her anger.

“She’s contracted Tuberculosis,” he continued. “She hadn’t been well for some time, but she ignored it, self-medicated away the symptoms. By the time she finally made it to a doctor—if she’d just seen a doctor sooner—she might have had a chance. But now, the odds of surviving it are not good.”

Paul glanced at Rhees and felt himself start to lose his composure, haunted by thoughts he had yet to share.

“She’s HIV-positive, probably has been for a while.”

“I’m so sorry.” Rhees’ countenance fell. “I jumped to the wrong conclusions. You were upset. You ran off to support a dying friend—and I—I’m so—”

He pressed a finger to her lips, once again in awe of her compassionate soul.

“That’s what
you
would have done—probably not the smashing things up part—but no, Rhees—
I
went to Texas.”

“What?” she cried out, her face the picture of incredulity. “Are you kidding me? You don’t have to have me committed to get rid of me. I know you’re unhappy. I’ll keep my appointment with Barton. We can go together. I won’t fight you on anything. I’ll leave—”

“To get tested!” he yelled over her outburst. “I flew to Houston to get tested, because I’ve never been tested . . . and I haven’t exactly been the pillar of careful.”

Rhees stopped talking a million miles a minute and just stared at him, confusion all over her expression.

“Listen.” He felt his eyes fill a little. “When I left home, Florida . . .” How did he get here? He didn’t want to relive all this again, but he had to. It was time, because Rhees had to know.

“The gun misfired, and I didn’t have the courage to try again, but I didn’t stop wanting to put an end to the tormenting memories, and the suffocating guilt. I couldn’t bring myself to take a quick way out again, but I—it didn’t keep me from trying more passive, creative ways of getting the job done.

“I took the first flight out of Miami and wound up in London. I met Mitch at an illegal warehouse party, and we hit it off as we bitched together about London’s cold, sucky weather. He talked about his cousin the dive instructor, diving, and living
the life
. He planned to join up with her, and said I should tag along.

“I’d been drunk for days, so it didn’t take much to convince me to do anything. The next thing I knew, I was in Thailand, getting trained by Aislinn.” Paul’s eyes met Rhees’ with a knowing look. “I started calling her Ginger, because, well, because she has red hair and freckles.”

“You never call anyone by their real name,” Rhees added.

Paul smirked, nodding his head.

“She was mean as piss, and the wildest thing I’d ever seen. I finally told her she looked like Ginger on Gilligan’s Island—she didn’t— it’s almost an insult to Tina Louise, but I had to get her to stop punching me in the arm. I had a bruise for months.”

“You could have just started calling her Aislinn.”

“What’s the fun in that?” He smirked again.

So far, Paul’s story wasn’t setting Rhees’ mind at ease about Ginger, if that was his intention. They’d already established he had a thing for feisty girls who resented the nicknames he called them.

“Thailand can be a pretty wild place, if you’re not careful,” he continued. “It wasn’t hard to get myself into trouble—dangerous situations. I hung out at the roughest bars, picked fights with guys bigger than me.” He paused and glanced down. She felt him shift on the block beneath them.

“I’d smoked a little weed in my day, but . . . I started using drugs, all kinds—”

“After Pete died from—” Rhees gasped.

“I know, right? But I wanted to forget. That’s where my relationship with Ginger came in, she’d been using for years. She’d been there longer and had connections.” Paul kept looking at Rhees, but each time he tried, his eyes skittered away, as if he was too ashamed to meet her gaze. “I kept pushing my limits, and I’d curse every morning I woke up—because I secretly hoped I wouldn’t wake up.”

Rhees threw her other arm around his neck, and held on tight, wishing she could have taken away his pain.

“Rhees?” He tried to pull himself from her more intimate grasp, but she didn’t let him. “I spent the next two years messed up and stoned out of my mind, and yeah, I slept with Ginger, but I didn’t feel anything for her except . . . convenience.”

“Okay,” Rhees breathed.

“But the thing is . . .” Paul hesitated. Rhees could tell he didn’t want to go on, but he pushed forward. “She wasn’t the
only
girl I slept with.”

“I already know you weren’t a virgin, and you already know I don’t care about your past.”

He nodded, but didn’t appear to be put at ease.

“Ginger was fine with casual. She used me as much as I used her—she’d even bring
friends
over. We’d all get high, fu—uuh—
romp
.” He hesitated again. “She always had a party pack on her, or we’d just blunt, or blaze.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He finally did meet her eyes for a second. They were sad. “I hope you
never
know a thing about what I just said.” He dropped his head and seemed to be thinking back in time.

“Rhees,” he panted, closing his eyes.

She wasn’t sure if his bottom lip started twitching or trembling, the difference meant he was nervous, or scared, but she couldn’t tell which.

“I wasn’t careful!” He coughed out a sob. “I didn’t care where the needles came from, if that was the flavor of the day, and I wasn’t especially selective about who I was with . . . and I didn’t always . . .” He sobbed again as he squeezed her to him in a desperate hold. “I didn’t always use a condom.”

“Oh.” It was all Rhees could think to say.

“I wasn’t careful, because I didn’t care. I didn’t care, because I didn’t know you were going to come into my life.”

They shared a long pause, holding each other, sniffling into each other’s necks.

“When I got that email,” he forced out, and then gulped in a breath, “I read the words—Ginger is dying because she’d been careless . . . as careless as I’d been. I should have been upset or sad about that, but my only thought—” He painfully coughed out and sucked in gusts of air while desperately pulling on her, grabbing at her, trying to get closer, kissing and nuzzling her hair, her neck and face.

“Aw, Baby.” He sobbed again. “I didn’t have a condom in Costa Rica. I woke up and found myself all over you . . . and the dressing room. Ginger is dying because she was careless and stupid, and I deserve the same—” He’d become too choked up to finish. Rhees could only hold him and wait for him to recover.

“Aw, Rhees. I—I thought I’d killed you! I was sure I’d infected the most beautiful, innocent, pure person I’ve ever known in this ugly, screwed up world.”

“Are you?” she asked, not really sure she wanted to know the answer. “Infected?”

“No,” he rushed out in a relieved gust. “Nothing. Not even an STD.”

She felt so good in his arms, a little too naked for the moment, in her
sexy-as-hell
bikini. He continued talking to keep his mind, and
He
, under control.

“So, you’re not pregnant?” he said in an attempt to get his emotional outburst under control.

She shook her head against his.

“Oh.” He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “My mom used to talk about nesting instincts in her patients. I just thought—when I walked into the apartment and saw the way you’d redecorated, I’d been so worried about convincing you to forgive me. I selfishly hoped you could be, thinking it might work to my favor.”

She giggled and he had to look at her. He couldn’t believe she could laugh; let it go so fast, all the things he’d just confessed. He wanted to take it as a good sign.

“I just wanted to make it more like Oceanside. You were so angry with me for moving out. It felt like buying a ticket after the train had already left the station, but it gave me something to do, to get my mind off of you leaving me.”

“It’s not that I mind that you moved out. You just caught me off-guard, that’s all. I was still trying to do what I thought I had to do, and the move chipped away at my resolve that much more. You swing a wicked axe, Baby.” He grinned. “You do deserve the best, and my apartment sucks. At least, it did. It looks great now, still small, but it feels like—” He brightened with a new idea. “Maybe we could look into building a beach house on the north side.”

“Paul?” she said quietly. Her eyes dropped down and she pulled away a bit from his thankful and relieved embrace. His first instinct was to pull her back, but he didn’t force it when her body stiffened.

“I think I should keep my appointment with Barton.”

“No,” he said. He refused to negotiate the matter. “You shouldn’t. I won’t let you.”

“I’m not asking your permission.”

She grew sullen again, and his heart thumped against his chest. He thought he’d succeeded in worming his way back in.

“I’m just telling you as a courtesy.”

“Shit,” he mumbled. He licked his lips when he felt them start their usual, nervous motions. He pressed them together, tight, so they couldn’t move.

“This isn’t working. I think—I think we’re just too far apart, like polar ends of a magnet. I’m miserable, seeing you miserable. I can’t do that to you anymore.”

“Stop saying that.” He felt the panic building as his life crumbled away again, bit by bit. “Polar ends maybe, but on the same magnet. You said yourself, opposites attract.”

“And you said, having nothing in common only makes people miserable.”

“I didn’t say that! I said—” He realized that what he had said wasn’t going to help his case. He mumbled the rest, “Falling in love with your opposite makes it even worse.”

“Yeah, that.” The sarcasm dripped from her tone. “Sorry, I don’t have your super-duper memory, so I can’t quote everything you’ve said, word for word.”

He drooped, feeling deflated.

“Love sucks,” he commented mindlessly, thinking back on what he’d meant, living what he’d meant, the fact that his heart was cracking and threatening to break into a million pieces. She gave him a pained look, let go of him, and started to swim away.

“But I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her back, blurting, “not loving you would suck even more. It would suck so much, I couldn’t bear it.”

He clenched his hands around her hips and hung on tight so she couldn’t get away again. She didn’t fight him, but she’d turned herself off, trying to tune him out.

“Opposites attract.” He grasped at all he had. “There’s a reason for that. The strengths of one, balance out the weaknesses of the other, so that together, two imperfect people become one perfect unit.”

“You don’t get to read my journal, and then throw my own words back at me,” she said.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you can’t.”

“I just did.”

“Yeah, you did, but Paul, you’re not supposed to go around, reading people’s private thoughts, and then use them as ammunition.”

“Since when do I follow standard guidelines of appropriate practice?” He tilted his head and raised a brow. “You know me better than anyone.”

She stared at him while she, he thought, tried to come up with a retort.

“But you love me anyway,” he beat her to it. “For some reason.”

She covered her face with both hands. His cockiness dissolved, thinking he’d made her cry again, but she massaged her temples like it was all giving her a headache.

“You can’t file for a divorce. Not yet, not right when I thought I’d just finally figured it all out.”

“What did you figure out?”

“That I, of all people, shouldn’t have put so much expectation on you—I think you’re perfect—but I got carried away with my perception. So . . . when we . . . in the dressing room . . .” He slowed down, hoping he’d stop stammering. “I thought I’d discovered you might not be perfect after all—and I felt betrayed—but I had no right to feel betrayed, because I had no right to hold you to my own perceived image, and I realize now, that what I did is the same thing I always thought my parents did to me—and I’m so,
so
sorry.”

“I never said I was perfect. In fact, I’m sure you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I tried to tell you many times, the opposite.”

“I know you did. I didn’t believe you, because you
are
as perfect as they come—I need to stop using that word.”

She studied him for a few seconds. He waited with bated breath, hoping she’d forgive him.

“You figured that out all by yourself, huh?”

“No, of course not,” he frowned. “Keene helped.”

“Keene, again.” She puckered her beautiful lips, and he tightened his grip on her, knowing he’d made her mad enough to try and bolt again.

“But that’s not all I figured out,” he rushed to plead his case, trying to sweeten the pot. “I couldn’t wait to get home to you. I had to tell you how sorry I was for the way I’ve been acting, but when I got here, I couldn’t find you, but I did find your journal. And we’ve already established that I breeched that trust, but reading what you’ve written, all the thoughts and doubts running through my mind, they all came together.

“I’d been beating myself up for ruining your life. I wanted you, I did everything in my power to keep you, and when things went to hell, because of what I thought was the result of my customary self-serving, self-indulgent, selfishness—” He sighed. “That’s a lot of self isn’t it?”

She nodded but gave him no telling expression, good or bad, to gauge what she felt at the moment.

“But as I read your life on paper, I started seeing—you know,” he said in a sing-song voice, “even though I am too self-confident, self-absorbed and self-centered, I care about you even more than myself.”