Casanova(36)

“Usually I’d say that all work and no play quote, but it sounds like you’ve been balanced on the play side for too long, so this might even it out.”

“I’m not all bad, you know.”

“Yeah? I don’t see you feeding homeless people.”

I laughed. “I do good stuff for people. I prefer to keep it to myself. That’s all.”

She held her hands out at her sides and stopped walking. “Brett, how am I supposed to help you if you’re apparently hiding good deeds?”

“I’m not hiding it.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I just don’t talk about it.”

“Why not?”

Do I have to have a reason? “Because I just don’t. It wouldn’t make a difference to how people view me, so there’s no point. I don’t do good stuff for myself. I do it because somebody needs to.”

Lani looked up at me. Her head was slightly tilted to the side, and there was a dark curiosity in her eyes. I could sense that she wanted to push me, but I looked at her firmly.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I bet it would make a difference. If you really...Never mind.”

“If I really what?”

“Nothing.” She smiled, but her heart wasn’t in this one.

“No.” I darted around her so she couldn’t walk any further.

She sidestepped, so I did too. We both stepped like that for a moment, going left and right, before she dropped her head back with a heavy sigh.

“Tell me what you were going to say, or I’m going to kiss you and make you so mad you yell it at me,” I warned her.

“You most certainly are not going to kiss me again!” She straightened, slapping her hands onto her hips.

I grinned. “I don’t need to. You’re pissed at me already.”

“You are such a shit.” She shoved her hand into my chest, but I didn’t move. “Jesus. Are you made of stone?” She prodded me hard with her fingertip. “Move, damn it. You’re like a statue.”

I held my hands out to my sides. “I’ve not done a lot except party and seduce women for the past couple years. I’ve spent a lot of time in the gym.”

Her gaze darted all around my body before she shook her head. “Good for you,” she said, but it was weak.

“Now what were you saying before you started attacking me?”

Lani rubbed her hands together in front of her stomach before she wrapped her arms around herself. “Brett...have you ever really paid attention to what the people in Whiskey Key think of you?”

I raised my eyebrows and shrugged a shoulder. “Not really.”

Slowly, she unwound her arms from her waist and dropped them to her sides. “They’re all waiting for you to destroy yourself,” she said, looking down at her feet in the sand. “They don’t think there’s anything good left inside you. Everything I’ve heard about you just screams that they’re waiting for the day you’re found dead in the gutter or something. The worst part is that I don’t know if they’d care.”

I took in a deep breath and stepped away from her. I knew it wouldn’t be good, but shit. No wonder my family was staging an intervention. Was that really what people thought of me? That I was one more weekend blowout away from the end of everything?

Lani’s eyes were focused back on me, but she didn’t say anything.

“What about you?” I asked her without looking at her. I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Is that what you think?”

“I don’t think it’s that far from the truth.”

I jerked my attention toward her, glaring.

“What? Do you want me to lie to you, Brett?” She tucked her hair back behind her ear. “Because if you want me to, I’ll coddle you and tell you they’re wrong and that you’re not doing anything stupid.”

“No,” I said on a heavy exhale. “I want you to be honest with me.”

She turned her face so she was looking out at the water. The sea breeze teased her dark hair around her face, and every time she tried to move it away, it blew right back there. “I don’t know why or how you ended up being this person, but you have to take responsibility for it. Nobody is going to believe in you if you give them nothing to believe in.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’ve never done a thing wrong in your life.”

Lani smiled, but it was sad. “I’ve done things wrong, but that’s because I don’t just wear my heart on my sleeve. I tend to pull it off and chuck it at people. I’ve trusted the wrong people and had my heart broken. I just wear those scars on the inside because they’re nobody else’s business.”

I studied her as she spoke. Her voice was flat, no emotion in it whatsoever. Her expression didn’t change either, except for her tiny, sad smile. She didn’t make a fuss over what she’d just said, she just said it. Like it didn’t matter anymore.

But all I could think about was that somebody broke her trust and broke her heart in the process.

“You just need to...I don’t know, Brett.” She sighed and looked at me. “Do something good. Something that you’re not going to hide. Do something that shows people there’s still a good guy somewhere beneath the bullshit.”