Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(34)



“Okay.”

I wasn’t done. “But I sometimes choose not to reveal the whole truth. I’ll never lie to you. But I might not always tell you everything, either.”

He took another nibble of donut. “That seems like a sort of imperfect arrangement.”

“Let me finish. Second. There are pieces of me that I don’t talk about. Not to anyone.”

“You’re really selling yourself.”

“Ethan?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up. Please. Okay? Just listen. For a minute.”

“Sorry.”

“And third. I sometimes struggle.”

“Struggle?”

“With certain impulses.”

“Impulses? What do you mean, impulses?”

“Look. As an example. My last boyfriend.”

He groaned. “Please don’t tell me you’re sleeping with an ex. That’s happened, like, at least three times to me. And it really sucks. You’d think it gets easier with practice, but turns out it doesn’t. Just continues to basically all-out suck.”

“No,” I said. “There’s no one else. Definitely no one else.”

He was watching me closely. “So what do you mean, with your ex?”

“I guess it ended with him because of how I act. Sometimes. In certain situations.”

“Like tonight?”

“Yeah. Like tonight.”

“So you mean … violently?” He thought this over. “What happened last time?”

“We were at a bar. Some dive. Having a drink, minding our own business. There were a couple of assholes who came in looking for trouble.”

“What happened?”

I drank some coffee and shifted my weight. “They hassled a couple of other people, then started trying to pick a fight with Bryan, my ex. Stupid stuff. Dumped a drink on him. Said suggestive things about me. The bartender knew them. Didn’t want to get in the middle of it. They wouldn’t leave us alone. Kept trying to get a rise out of him.”

“And?”

“Eventually they did. Only they didn’t get a rise out of him.”

“They got a rise out of you,” Ethan finished.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“What’d you do to them?”

I looked down at the yellow linoleum table, seeing directly under me the white-rimmed black circle of my coffee and next to it the dark circle of my uneaten chocolate donut. “I overreacted. In hindsight.”

“Overreacted?”

“Two of them had to be hospitalized. Not for anything major. But still.”

“Hospitalized? You used that thing? That stick?”

I shook my head emphatically. “No. I wouldn’t use a weapon unless someone threatened or attacked me with one. I believe in proportional response.”

“So how did you handle them?”

I looked at my two hands. Somehow I’d chipped the maroon polish on my left thumbnail. I’d have to repaint it. “A couple of drunk assholes. I didn’t need much.”

“So what happened?”

“I was arrested.”

“Arrested?”

“First time in my life. They plea-bargained the charges to a misdemeanor after they saw the security tapes. But I had to attend court-ordered therapy sessions. For my … issues.”

“The violence.”

“It’s not that I’m some raging psycho, Ethan. I’m not running around bashing heads or out of control. And I’ve never picked a fight in my life. But I tend to be … overprotective. Of people I care about. And certain situations end up setting something off.”

“Like tonight?”

“Like tonight.”

“Why?”

“Ask me a different one.”

“Okay. Anything else to confess?”

I had to laugh. “I think that’s enough for one night.”

“So you’re working on your … issues. In therapy.”

“I guess. When you put it that way.”

He sipped his coffee. “What kind of person carries that—that weapon around with them? That stick you pulled.”

I sighed. This was where questions led. “My job.”

“I thought you owned a bookstore.”

“I do. But I do some other work, too. On the side. Kind of after hours.”

He laughed uncomfortably. “I’m starting to see what you mean about the not-telling-me-everything-at-once thing. What do you do?”

“Sometimes I help people find things they’re looking for. Or learn things they’re trying to figure out. And sometimes … I help women. Women who need my help.”

“Help them how?”

“I help them get out of situations that aren’t good for them. I help them get away from people who are bad for them.”

“How do you do that?”

“I talk to those people in a language they understand.”

He took this in. “Do you carry a gun?”

“Ethan,” I said. “All in due time. But now I have a question for you.”

“Okay.”

“Can you handle it?”

“Handle it?”

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