Bodyguard by Melanie Shawn

22

Gage

Fuck.

I couldn’t believe what a gigantic asshole I was. Truly monumental.

I’d listened to Savannah pour out her heart to me, tell me how much she loved me—so much that she’d had it permanently imprinted on her body—tell me that I was the only man she’d ever loved. That she’d never been with anyone else.

And my reaction had been to push her away.

She was right. I was a shitty lover, and an even shittier friend.

I listened to the steady, watery beat of the shower. She’d retreated there after her scathing indictment. Which was also, I had to admit, a pretty great line. Even when she was furious, she still had a way with words.

I wasn’t sure why I’d pushed her off of me. I especially wasn’t sure why I’d done it so abruptly and coldly.

She didn’t deserve that. She just didn’t.

Fuck, she hadn’t had a choice about leaving me. She hadn’t done it on purpose. In fact, it was pretty clear that she hadn’t wanted to.

So why was I being such a dick about it?

The only thing I could think of was that it was my heart’s way of protecting itself. The moment had gotten a little too real, and I just couldn’t take it.

It didn’t make sense. Hell, if this whole situation we were in wasn’t ‘a little too real’ then I didn’t know what was.

But, that story that she’d told...it hit different. There was something about it.

She was showing you her heart. And you were afraid to show her yours.

Yeah. I had to admit, as cowardly as that made me come off, it rang true.

Damn it.

I just hoped I hadn’t ruined things forever.

Realizing she had been in the shower for way too long, I got up and crossed to the bathroom door. I was just about to knock lightly and apologize when I heard another sound underneath the roar of the spray.

I leaned closer, pressed my ear to the door.

Shit. Yep. It was crying. Savannah was crying.

Damn it. Her father’s death hadn’t been enough to make her break down. The danger she was in from the men who’d killed him also hadn’t been enough.

No. The thing that finally pushed her over the edge was...me. My dickhead behavior. My casual coldness. That was what had done it.

Fuck.

I turned around without knocking and laid back down on top of the covers.

When she finally came out of the bathroom and slid back between the sheets on the other side of the bed, I pretended to be asleep.

I knew it was cowardly, but, hell. Apparently that’s what I was now. At least when it came to being real with Savannah.