Start Me Up (Man of the Month 4)

"That's not fair."

She blinked, her body tired, her head hurting. "Isn't it? It feels fair. Hell, it feels like the truth. Because, dammit, Nolan, it hurts. Here," she said with her hand over her heart. "And I'm not sure how to make it feel better."

* * *

She curled up on the bed after he left, and she was still there hours later when her mom called around dinnertime. "I spoke with Alan," she said without preamble. "Is it true that you broke up with him?"

Shelby rubbed her face and forced herself to sit up. She needed blood to be circulating to her brain if she was going to have this conversation with her mother. "A while back, yeah. He's a great guy," Shelby said. "But not someone I want to spend the rest of my life with."

She thought of Nolan. Of a guy she could see in her future, and wondered if she'd over-reacted earlier. If maybe the fact that she could see a future with him was making her so terrified of losing him that she was seeing cracks in the relationship where there weren't any cracks at all.

"Shelby. You know I'm not going to criticize your choices, but we both know that Alan adored you."

"I guess so," she said. "But I didn't adore him."

There was a pause, and then her mom said, "I see. And is there someone else you're seeing?"

Shelby loved her mom, but for a woman who lived by math and numbers, she was very rarely direct and straightforward in life stuff. "If you've been taking to Alan, you know there is."

She could practically hear her mother's frown. "Alan didn't know who'd captured your interest."

"His name's Nolan Wood. He's a radio host."

"What? Like a DJ?"

"It's a lot more than that, Mom. He's practically a stand-up comic."

"I'm really not sure that makes it better. You have professional appearances to think of. Does he--"

"That reminds me," she said, grateful to have a way to change the subject. "I got a call from the Young Professionals. You know, that networking and educational group? They asked me if I'd do an on-camera interview for their webpage. It will be on Facebook and YouTube and I don't know what else."

"Sweetheart, that's wonderful. That's exactly the kind of thing you should be doing."

Unlike Nolan, which wasn't.

Her mom didn't say the last, of course, but Shelby heard it anyway, and the censure was still ringing in her ears after she ended the call.

But all it did was bring her thoughts of Nolan front and center.

She reached for her phone to call him, but pulled her hand back, afraid he'd hang up on her. More than that, afraid that she would deserve it if he did.

Instead, she grabbed the copy of Watchmen off the table, settled back on the love seat, and picked up where she left off.

When she finally closed the book, it was late. She'd been absorbed in the story of the flawed and fascinating heroes. A lot of times, they'd made the wrong choices, but that didn't mean she stopped rooting for them.

Then again maybe it was Nolan she was thinking of, and not the Watchmen at all.

Frowning at her own meandering thoughts, she got up and went to the bedroom, intending to go to bed. Instead, she found herself pulling on shorts and a T-shirt, grabbing her purse, and then heading out to her car.

Chapter Fifteen

Considering Nolan usually crashed early during the week so that he wasn't a zombie on his show, he very rarely went to bed before one or two a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Why would he? Those were the only days he could enjoy all the magic of late nights. Like really bad YouTube movies and obnoxious shopping networks. Both of which never failed to provide Nolan with plenty of material for his own show.

Today, he'd crashed early. A cop-out, because he didn't want to think about what Shelby had said. About him keeping part of himself from her. It was bullshit, of course. Just because he didn't catalogue every tiny aspect of himself didn't mean he was holding back on their relationship. And, honestly, what did it matter to them as a couple if he struggled with reading?

Not a goddamn thing.

All of which was a perfectly sound argument. Except for the minor flaw of being entirely unbelievable.