Renny (The Henchmen MC 6)

That was true enough. "Renny isn't like most guys."

"Because he is like you," she nodded. "You know, I would think it would be almost refreshing to find that- someone who gets how you are. I don't see any relief in you though. If anything, you're tense. What are you so afraid of here? That you won't be able to keep up appearances? That if he gets in, he will see that your life isn't quite as neat as it seems, that you aren't quite as perfectly controlled as you want people to believe?"

That was exactly it.

There was a legitimate reason that very few people wanted to be exposed emotionally. It made you vulnerable. It gave people with bad intentions the ability to hurt you in a more lasting way.

No one wanted to expose the hidden parts of themselves to someone unless they knew that person was trustworthy.

I didn't feel that way about Renny.

He was too unpredictable, too up and down.

And he had used information he had gained on his own people against them in the past. I didn't need that kind of uncertainty in my life.

"I can't trust him, Lo," I admitted. "It's not like you and Cash. It's not..."

"I know we're so stupidly in love that it's sick," she cut me off. "But it wasn't always that way. It certainly didn't start that way. He didn't like me because he didn't approve of what we did at Hailstorm. I had no interest in being a notch on his very, very long belt. And we butted heads and we sniped at each other and we didn't get along. But he proved himself. Sometimes you need to give men that chance."

"To prove themselves?" I asked, shaking my head. "I think their actions and lifestyle should..."

"But they don't," she cut me off again. "They don't. Sometimes men get stuck in a spiral of sport sex and responsibility-shirking and hanging out with their buddies who do the same thing, not realizing that they want more. Until more shows up."

"Right, but we're not talking about his whoring around. I don't care about that. It would be weird if he didn't, to be perfectly honest. I'm talking about the fact that he's deceptive and he is unpredictable and he..." I waved out a hand, not sure what else to say. For me, that was enough.

"You know, Mina," she said, stopping suddenly when we found ourselves under a big tree at the far end of the yard, in the field where Repo had some of his cars situated again since the garage was burned down. "Sometimes it's good to not be able to read someone, to not be able to dig around in their brains. You have been the way you are for so long that I think you forget that that is not how relationships between people work. You see what is going on inside someone because they choose to tell you. They put their faith to rest in you. They believe they can trust you to handle that information with care. Maybe if you gave Renny a chance to give you some of himself, he would."

"But that doesn't change the fact that I don't think I can trust him."

"You'll never know unless you give him the chance to prove that you can, babe."

She wasn't exactly wrong. And I wasn't exactly crazy about that.

"Besides," I said, shrugging, "relationships aren't in the cards for me."

"Why? Because you travel a lot? Mina, I travel a lot too. Cash is a big boy, he gets on without me when I have to go. Plus, the welcome home sex is always hot," she added with a smirk. "Don't let the job keep you from the more important things in life, honey."

I wasn't sure the last time I was with a man who I would call a boyfriend or partner or anything more than a fling or a friend with benefits. It had to have been years. Several, if I was being honest.

Most of that, I was sure, was my own damn fault. It was always just too hard for me to open up, to let down my guards, to be real with someone. And it was selfish to try to tell a guy to hang around, to let me take a year to get over my hangups. That was just unrealistic. It was easier to ignore the reality completely.

Occasionally, I would go on a date or two.

And, once in a while, I would take a man to bed, albeit somewhat rarely because it tended to only complicate things.

But as a whole, I avoided entanglements.

It made everyones' lives easier.

Why, all of a sudden, it was such a big deal, well, I was going to go ahead and blame that on the fact that I was never in the same place for so long with a guy who couldn't take a hint.