Aaron must actually be considering it, she realized none too calmly as he stood there with the door propped open.

What was he thinking? Julie wondered with… annoyance? Yes, it had to be annoyance.

"No," he finally said, shaking his head. "Go back to your room, don't come back to this one… I can't talk to you right now."

She held the door open again, gaining confidence. "You want to. I can tell you want to."

"Of course I want to," Aaron said dismissively. "I want to hear the woman who fucked me over and fucked my brother grovel about what a mistake it was, how she would give anything to take it all back and be with me again. Who wouldn't want to hear that, Shannon? But right now there's someone waiting for me to join her in bed, and I have no intention of disappointing her to go for a walk with you." He smiled. "Sweet dreams, Shannon."

And then he closed the door in her face, and she didn't try to stop him.

As he walked back to the chair, he said, "Sorry about making you sound like a sex to

y."

Shrugging, Julie offered a smile and said, "It’s cool."

Sighing as he sat down in the chair, he said, "You know, I could be getting laid tonight."

"Yes, you could," Julie agreed with a nod.

"And I could have been a bastard about it, too," he mused. "I could have given her hope, let her grovel, went back to her room with her… and then left her in the morning, never to be heard from again."

"And you could catch herpes or syphilis; that would be fun, wouldn't it?" Julie said cheerfully.

Shooting her a look, he said, "Hey, I said no, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did. After a hesitation," she added.

"Don't even go there," he warned. "How many times did you hesitate with Matt? And you claim you didn't love him. I did love Shannon; I thought I would spend the rest of my life with her. You don't think it's tempting? Do you have any idea how long I've been alone? And it's because of her, because of… the bullshit. I can't even date. I did try. Twice. I tried to date two different girls after Shannon, and I scared both of them off in record time."

Thinking back to his gruff personality, she could imagine how.

"Sometimes I think she's the only person who could put up with me. But at the end of the day, I have too much damn pride. I can't forgive her."

Crawling over to the other side of the bed so she was sitting closer to Aaron, she said, "I don't blame you. I doubt I could either."

"And the alternative is being alone," he stated, gazing at the neck of his bottle.

"That's not true," she said, shaking her head. "You're a wonderful man, Aaron, and I think you could be very happy with someone who...is loyal. Someone who appreciates you."

He shook his head. "No, you don't understand; you've never dated me."

"Well, no, I haven't, but… I am around you a lot."

He shook his head more fervently. "It's different. I'm… the whole thing with Matt and Shannon made me… really distrusting. I'm one of those crazy possessive guys. You know the thing when I got drunk on New Year's and I made you delete Matt's text messages? That's the kind of thing that I do to girls I try to date. I never used to be like that, but I never thought I had to worry about it. The one girl I tried to date was Alicia, really nice girl, but she would drive me crazy talking to other guys. I'm just… weird about it. We went out to dinner once, I went to the bathroom and when I came back she was playing with her phone… she had a missed call or something from some other guy, and I… acted like an asshole for the rest of the night. She actually did go out with me one more time after that, and we were in a movie theater, her cell went off, she practically ran out to take the phone call and I… flipped out of her. I'm the one you avoid and bitch to your friends about."

Frowning, Julie said, "I don't… really see that. How soon after Shannon was this?"

Shrugging, he said, "I don't know, a month?"

Her eyes widened slightly and she said, "Well, duh! It was too soon; you weren't ready."

He shook his head. "I don't think so. I think New Year's Eve proved that I'm still like that."

"Okay, for one thing, you didn't make me delete the text messages, you gave me an option and I chose to let you do it. Free will right there."

"You only think that because you're not in my mind," he told her. "You don't really know what my thoughts are."

Tags: Sam Mariano Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net