“Tate…” I said softly and didn’t carry on.

Tate stared at me and then asked bitingly, “Am I supposed to read your mind?”

“You were kissing her… you went into a hotel room.”

“So?”

“Tate,” I whispered. “That wasn’t two weeks before we…”

“No, you’re right, it wasn’t,” Tate confirmed. “Your point?”

“How can you be history if you were with her not even two months ago?” I asked. “That isn’t exactly history.”

“An hour after I walked into that hotel room, Lauren, we were history.”

“You were… you both were… you seemed…” I stammered.

“We were then an hour later we were not,” Tate clipped.

“How can that be?” I asked, my voice pitching higher.

“The same way it can be that not two months ago you were talkin’ about how you loved that jackass of an ex of yours, how you stepped aside so you wouldn’t prolong your sorrow at losin’ him and yesterday and this mornin’ you could barely stomach lookin’ at him.”

“That isn’t the same,” I whispered.

“Yeah, Wood tell you all about Neeta and me? You an expert now?” Tate asked scornfully.

“He told me about Bethany,” I shared and took another step back as Tate’s expression turned stormy.

“Good call, Ace, but you might wanna take another step back,” Tate warned.

“Tate –”

“He tell you he had Bethany before me?” Tate bit out and my body jerked at discovering this news, news Wood had not shared.

“No,” I whispered.

“He tell you she was nuts?” Tate asked.

I shook my head. “Nuts?”

“Fuckin’ ‘round the bend. Christ almighty, the bitch made Neeta look adjusted,” his eyes swept me and he finished, “seems I got a f**kin’ type.”

That made me take another step back but this time I did it like he landed a blow.

“Tate,” I whispered.

“She was whacked, pure and simple. Didn’t know it until I started it with her. Her Dad knew it, lazy f**k, didn’t do shit about it. Coulda got her help. Didn’t. Didn’t listen to Wood when he talked to him. Didn’t listen to me talkin’ to him after Wood. Total denial. She was high-strung, he said, but he knew better. She wasn’t high-strung. She was f**kin’ cracked.”

I swallowed and stayed silent as Tate kept talking.

“I had Neeta jackin’ up most of my life and then I had Bethany jackin’ up the rest of it. I couldn’t handle her, I didn’t have the tools and I didn’t have any help from her family. I couldn’t do it so I had to scrape her off. She slit her wrists and almost bought it. Ten minutes later, Arnie showed ten minutes later, she’d be gone,” Tate informed me. “She’s in C Springs now, a live-in unit. Last time I visited her she was doin’ a lot better. Half zombie on all the shit they gotta feed her but it’s better than the strung out way she used to be.”

That was sad.

It was also not exactly how Wood described it. He’d given me the bones of the story but he left out all of the meat.

I took in a breath and asked, “Is Neeta married?”

Tate answered immediately, “Yeah.”

I closed my eyes and turned my face away, licking my lips.

“Look at me, Lauren,” Tate demanded and I shook my head. “Babe, f**kin’ look at me.”

I looked at him.

“You hear other shit about Neeta?” he asked astutely and I nodded.

“Nothing much,” I whispered. “People mention her name and yours. They sound… funny.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Fuckin’ hilarious.”

“Not funny like that,” I told him softly.

“I know Lauren,” he replied.

“Betty said she’s the reason you’re not a cop,” I said.

“That ain’t true though I bet she believes it like gospel. Neeta’s bigger than life, likes it that way, works hard for that reputation. You ask about Neeta, people’ll talk and you can believe about five percent of what they say and she likes it like that, it’s exactly how she wants it. They mention me with her, you can believe about point five percent of what they say.”

“Tate –”

He cut me off. “It’s shit.”

“But –”

“It’s shit, Lauren,” he clipped. “I quit The Force because Arnie is a lazy f**k. Most of his officers were lazy f**ks too. Shit happenin’ in that town, you wouldn’t believe. Still does ‘cause he’s still Chief. Whacked. I didn’t like the way he ran his station, I didn’t like the way he played favorites with his boys, I didn’t like the way he turned a blind eye when shit went down and I knew he did it because he’d had his palm greased and I didn’t like the way he didn’t have the spine to admit his daughter was sick and get her help. I made detective because I worked f**kin’ hard for it and I did it despite him because he never f**kin’ liked me mostly because I didn’t like him. That shit went down with Bethany, it was his gig. I knew I couldn’t come to work and see his f**kin’ face every day. So I quit and started huntin’. Make triple what I made then and don’t have to deal with any f**kin’ shit.”

“Except Bubba,” I reminded him, perhaps stupidly.

“Yeah, except Bubba,” he agreed, luckily not getting even angrier being reminded of Bubba.

We stared at each other and I watched as Tate seemed prepared to hang onto his anger.

Therefore I told him, “Carrie says I leap before I look.”

Tate didn’t respond.

“And that I hold a mean grudge,” I went on.

“Lived that nightmare,” Tate muttered.

“I should have talked to you,” I whispered.

“Yeah, Ace, you should have talked to me.”

I watched some more as he continued to seem prepared to hang onto his anger.

“I’m sorry, honey,” I kept whispering.

His brows went up and he crossed his arms on his chest.

“Should I forgive you?” he asked and I swallowed.

The tables were turned and now I knew what he felt like all those weeks ago and it really wasn’t nice.