Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

She dropped her hand and made a self-deprecating face when she took in his skeptical expression.

“I needed money,” she shared. “You know me and Mom don’t get along all that great. Dad’s a dick. I’m not going there. I’m living with her, it’s not working for either of us, so I have to get out. I got another job, decent money, but now I’m hanging on by a thread, because they aren’t real thrilled I worked for them for a few days then I had to call off because I’d been arrested for breaking and entering and attempted burglary.”

She stopped speaking and bit her lip when she noticed that Remy wasn’t responding to any of her attempts at humor, but she didn’t give up.

She let go of her lip and forged on.

“I just knew Wyn had stuff. Expensive stuff. And I needed money. That part wasn’t about hurting you or her. Honest to God. It was because I had to find some fast cash and I figured she’d be insured so what would it hurt?”

When he didn’t say anything, she spoke again.

“Just so you know, sitting in that cell, I realized I was still in the dying throes of crazy, and you and Wyn wouldn’t think the same way.”

“We didn’t. Neither did Sabre, Manon or Yves,” he asserted.

She flinched.

She never got along with Manon, but she really liked Sabre, and tried her best with Yves.

He needed to wind this up.

“I wasn’t being honest with myself, and you were caught up in that,” he said.

Her face got soft. “Remy, did you miss me telling you about my near-fatal brush with being a moron?”

With her expression and her words, he was remembering what attracted him to her in the first place.

She could be sweet as well as funny.

“I knew you weren’t into me,” she admitted on a whisper.

“That doesn’t absolve me.” He did not whisper. “The idea of me getting back from Wyn’s and you knowing where my head was at, it doesn’t feel good I put you through that.”

“But you didn’t know where your head was at. I don’t know why you two broke up, you never shared that with me, and that in itself…I mean, seriously, baby, you didn’t ever give me anything important.”

She let it sink in, how deep she’d dived into what they had, or more importantly what they did not, and then she continued.

“All I knew was, you were suffering for it. I fell in love with the wrong dude. I knew it. I didn’t do anything about it. You liked me and wanted to spend time with me. You knew you couldn’t give me anything more, even knowing I wanted it, and you didn’t do anything about it. We both fucked up. We both admitted it. And now…”

She pulled in another breath, this one so big, her chest moved out, her shoulders went up, and he could see relief on her face when she let it out, before she concluded.

“And now we can both move on.”

“I appreciate that, Myrna. But you need to move on understanding it’s Wyn’s decision about dropping the charges.”

She shook her head. “I’m not asking you for that. I’m just saying, what’s done is done between us. You don’t have to worry about anything else from me. No matter what she decides. I’m done acting like an idiot over a guy. It’s over.”

It’s over.

Could he believe it?

“I want to trust that,” he said quietly.

“You can trust it,” she said firmly.

Both of them sat in silence, staring at each other.

Myrna broke it.

“I fucked any chance of being buds with Sabre, haven’t I?”

Oh yes, she’d categorically done that.

He nodded and gave it to her honestly. “Yes.”

She shook her head morosely, looked at her lap and said, “God. Total moron.”

Yes, she had been.

But she wasn’t.

However, he wasn’t going to convince her of that. Like he wasn’t going to get into how she was in fact a thirty-nine-year-old woman who needed to keep a job, look after her finances, stop bumming off people, including her mother, and get her shit tight.

But he wasn’t that person to her and never would be.

She raised her head, caught his gaze and said, “I’m sorry too. I appreciate you being the bigger person, laying things out like you did. But what I did was sheer lunacy. I can tell you, I knew it at the time I was doing it, I just couldn’t seem to stop myself. But now, I see it, and honest to God, Remy, I’m really, really sorry about it. All of it.”

It was then, finally, Remy felt for her.

“Demons,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“Demons,” he repeated. “My dad told me we all have demons in us that push us to do things that hurt the ones we love most. I did it to Wyn. You did it to me. I know now how mine were born. And maybe…hopefully, knowing that means I can control them. I think, Myrna, maybe giving some time to figuring out how yours were born will help you get to that point too.”

“Short journey straight to my dad being a narcissistic, asshole dick to me and my mom and my brother our whole lives,” she declared.

He smiled.

“There you go. Maybe work on that?” he suggested.

She stood, but went to her wineglass, picked it up and took a healthy gulp.

She then put it back down and looked at him.