Girl Crush(56)

“Pretty much.”

I nodded slowly but didn’t give him any answers.

“So?”

The time had come. I was about to lay it all on the line and had no idea what would come of my deception, but I figured one way or another, it would resolve itself by the time he got up.

“I kissed you, and you didn’t respond. What more do you need to know?”

“Why?”

“Why, what? Why did I kiss you?”

He turned his head and stared me straight in the eyes—beyond a surface-level glance. Something flashed in them, but I couldn’t read what it was. His face went blank, void of emotion. When he nodded, I just shrugged. Brilliant, Giselle—way to take the bull by the horns.

“Do you do that to a lot of men?” He was hurt. Disappointed in me.

“Truthfully?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not interested in hearing you lie to me.”

“I’ve been known to kiss a few men in my time.”

“So you’re bisexual?”

I couldn’t bear to face him when I admitted this, and I wasn’t going to beat around the bush anymore. Staring at my knees bent in front of me, I said, “No. I’m not bisexual—”

“So what, you mess with men for fun? Jesus, Giselle. That’s fucked up. I’d never do that shit to you. I’d never lead you on like that.”

“I didn’t lead you on, Collier.” My voice rose in anger, and I lifted my head to stare him straight in the eye. “I’m straight. Always have been.” I hadn’t intended to blurt that out, and certainly not with as much force. I had wanted to ease into it, tell him how I got to the point I was at, but my temper hadn’t allowed that.

“Does my sister know? What about your friends? The girls you’ve dated? How the hell can you say you’re straight?”

“Because I am. I’ve never done anything more than kiss a woman.” My frustration mounted, but I didn’t know how to reel in the anxiety that drove my words. “I like men.”

“How is that possible? All your friends are lesbians. You’ve told me about your dates since we met and how bad they’ve been. And it’s all been with women. So enlighten me as to how you’re suddenly heterosexual.”

I wrapped my hands around the back of my neck and tried to ease the tension by massaging the muscles that had contracted since this conversation started. My head tipped, and I rolled my shoulders with my eyes closed. When I finally opened them, Collier’s wounded heart glistened in his gaze. And I knew…there was no way this would end well.

“I was married…to a man. He cheated on me with the woman I told you about that I ran into at the restaurant.”

“So you lied to me about the ex being a woman?”

“No, you assumed it was a woman, and I didn’t correct you, but I never said it was a man or a woman. I simply said it was my ex.”

“It’s a lie just the same.”

He was right, and I knew it, but this was his chance to get the information he swore he wanted, so he could either shut up and listen, or I would shut down. “Do you want the story or not, Collier? It’s a little early in the morning for this shit.” I didn’t have a right to bite at him, but my emotion and embarrassment drove my irritation.

“Yeah.” He turned to face me and leaned up against the stair railing.

“I swore after the nastiest divorce in history that I was done with commitment. I had great friends and didn’t need a guy to complete my life. So I used men the way he’d used me, but I was honest about it. I told them I wasn’t interested in a relationship—I didn’t want anything more than something physical. I figured men did it all the time, and as long as I was safe about it, there was no reason a woman couldn’t pursue her sexuality the same way. And I did.”

“So what changed?”

“Justin.”

He looked at me quizzically, so I broke it down for him. I told him about the string of horrible dates with men that ended with Justin creating urine art all over my walls and that after that night, I decided I was done with the opposite sex. And I chose to give women a shot since my heterosexual relationships had flopped…crashed and burned…exploded in a blaze of glory.

“You know you can’t just choose to be gay, right?”

I rolled my eyes having heard the same thing a hundred times from the lesbians in my life. “Yes. I get that now, but at the time, it seemed like a logical choice.”

“Chasing women because men hadn’t treated you well seemed logical?”

“Look, that’s what happened. My first date was with your sister. It went really well. We had a great time. Our second date was the night we met at your house, and it did not go the way the previous one had.”

“But you said you never slept with my sister.”

“I didn’t. I never touched your sister, unless you count her holding my hand and kissing me on the cheek when we left the bar as an intimate touch. But I have to tell you, Ronnie has done that a thousand times, and I can assure you there is no sexual tension there.”

I recounted each of my dates with the same sex and how each had fallen short, most of which he already knew from the countless conversations we’d had, but I wanted him to have a timeline of events.