Chapter 16
Frankie told Keel about the movie night thing, and he was excited for her. “That will be great. We’ll go by and pick up snacks for you.” She shook her head, and his eyebrows pinched together. “What?”
“It’s just I spent years with Forest restricting my food, and you’re encouraging me to eat. It’s just weird. Like, how can you be so nice? You don’t care if I eat pizza or chocolate or potato chips.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “If you want to eat a certain way, like vegetarian, or high protein, I’ll support you as long as you’re doing it in a healthy way. Health is the key. We need food for fuel. It should never be used as a weapon like Forest used it against you.”
Her eyes burned with tears as she stared into his beautiful eyes. “Why are you so nice? I’m not worth it.”
His arms wrapped around her, pulling her close. His lips were on her forehead, soothing her. She should pull away, force him to see that she wasn’t good, but his arms around her felt so good. She wanted him in her space, touching her, kissing her.
“I think you’re worth it. I’m the one who isn’t worth it.”
She pulled back, shaking her head as shock rolled through her. “How are you not worth it?”
Keel’s failures hit him hard. He’d messed up so much with Shana. “I’m just not good. I won’t be good for you.”
Frankie’s eyes narrowed, and she frowned. “How are you not good?”
He shook his head as his eyebrows pinched together. “I wasn’t good. I messed up.”
“Your ex?”
He lifted one shoulder, and his lips thinned. He looked annoyed. She wondered if she should stop questioning him. No question, if this conversation were happening with Forest, he would have already hit her.
“Yeah. My ex. I wasn’t good for her.”
Frankie hesitated, unsure if she should push more or step back. “From what I remember, she was a mess.”
He shrugged. “I was a mess, too.”
She rolled her eyes. “I doubt you were that messy.”
“I wasn’t good.”
No question, this was the weirdest conversation she’d had with a guy. But Keel was different from the men she’d known before. Instead of pulling away and hiding, she decided to dig deeper.
“So you know about my relationship and my failures, tell me about yours.”
He shook his head. “You weren’t a failure.”
She lifted one shoulder. “Maybe we’re both screwed up. Tell me, and we can talk about it.”
He blew out a breath and turned away. She wondered if he wasn’t going to talk. She had pushed enough. If he didn’t want to talk, she wouldn’t dig for more. Then Keel glanced over his shoulder, his gaze intense.
“Okay, I’ll tell you, but I’m not proud of it.”
“I’ve done loads of stuff I’m not proud of, and you know about a lot of it. Who am I to judge?”
He drew in a slow breath and shook his head. “Just don’t be too harsh.”
“I won’t.”
“So I know I was wrong about stuff, but a while ago I overheard a video my ex, Shana, made. I was out at a restaurant, and the video was playing in the booth behind me. She detailed in a very pointed way exactly how much I’d screwed up.
I know I did a lot of stuff wrong, but hearing the two women talk about how horrible the stuff I did was, it kind of hurt.
I have huge faults, and I won’t make a good partner. ”
Frankie shrugged. “We all have faults, but I’m sure you weren’t the only one in that relationship in the wrong.”
He couldn’t let her defend him. There was a lot of stuff he’d done wrong. “I could have paid more attention to her.”
“Were you that uninvolved?”
He shrugged. “I worked a lot. It wasn’t like I was purposely picking up extra time. I had training in other states, and then I was deployed. She didn’t take it well.” Keel rubbed the back of his neck. “When I found out she was with another guy while I was on deployment, that hurt.”
Frankie stared at him, almost afraid to ask how he’d reacted. Forest used to let his friend have sex with her, then beat her for having sex with his friends. It was sick.
“What happened?” she whispered the question, unease shifting through her.
Keel shook his head and reached out. She would be lying to say she didn’t flinch. Not that she thought Keel would hit her, but the automatic response was to jerk away.
Keel let his hand drop, and she moved to him, putting her hand on his arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to react.”
He grunted. “It’s understandable. The jerk you were with hit you. Even when I found out Shana had been fucking another guy, I didn’t hit her. I yelled, and then I walked out.”
“Was that before your parents’ funeral?”
He nodded. “Yeah. We’d only been married nine months at that time.”
“Shit, that sucks. Then she had the audacity to act like an ass at your parents’ funeral.”
Keel’s head hung low as he nodded. “Maybe I could have listened to her better. Paid more attention. Quit the Army and been around more.”
She felt for him. He’d been a good guy, maybe not perfect, but good, and Shana had treated him like shit. The man needed to stop beating himself up. He really was a good guy, and his ex was stupid.
“You know, looking back, there will always be things that we could have done differently. That’s in the book you gave me to read.”
She was right, it was in the book. Still, the feeling that he hadn’t been good enough stuck with him.
He didn’t want to live forever in his failures, but that’s what he had been doing.
He never wanted to get involved in another relationship because he hadn’t gotten over the failures he’d had with Shana.
Maybe he hadn’t learned everything he needed to learn from that book.
“My work, the Army, is important to me. I love what I do. Because of the physical requirements, I have maybe eight years left doing what I do. I won’t be around every evening. There are times I have to take off. It’s not always planned. It has nothing to do with how I feel about you. It’s work.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
He turned to her, his heart swelling, almost making it feel like he had something stuck in his throat. He could back away now, take the coward’s way out.
There was something about Frankie that he couldn’t turn from. “We shouldn’t do this, but I can’t walk away from you.”
Frankie sucked in a sharp breath, and for a moment, he worried that she would turn and leave him.
That’s what he deserved. It wasn’t that he wanted to put the Army before her, but his job was the kind that took and took, and he wouldn’t leave the job because deep down, he felt they were making a real difference.
Frankie’s hand landed on his arm, and she squeezed, giving him courage to say more.
“If we do this. If we get together, I don’t want you to think I’m abandoning you when I have to leave, even though we have dinner planned. Vacations, I take time off work and wouldn’t be called in unless it was something big.”
“Like nine-eleven?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Something like that. I’m up in my head and may not communicate well. If I’m involved in something deep, I’m in it, and I might not call for weeks at a time.”
She squeezed his arm and stepped closer. “I’ve only been in bad relationships, except one in high school. I’m not sure I’m good enough to be in a good relationship.”
He pulled her close. “I think you deserve a good relationship, and maybe I’m not good enough for you. This may sound crazy, but I want to try with you. I want us to try together.”
She glanced down, her gaze on the ground. Had he pushed too much? Maybe she wasn’t ready, and he was being foolish bringing it up. He was about to tell her to forget it when she reached out and took his hand.
“I’m still screwed up in the head. My last relationship did a number on me. I don’t want either of us to feel trapped.”
He wove their fingers together. “If you’ll have me, I want to try. We may not work out, but I don’t want to hurt you.”
The way she looked at him made his heart swell with a feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
She was perfect for him, and he couldn’t really explain why.
The feelings he had for her made little sense, not when he went over how long they’d known each other.
But the depths of his feelings couldn’t be denied.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
Frankie’s words came out in a whisper, and he almost laughed.
She wasn’t talking about physical hurt. She was warning him because they’d both been through so much.
He’d admitted that his ex had screwed him over, and he’d almost not recovered from it.
No question, Frankie wouldn’t be anything like his ex.
“And I don’t want to hurt you. You have been so nice to me. I think we should take it slow, though.”
“Yes. We go slow.”
“How about we don’t have sex for at least a few weeks. It may be hard to restrain ourselves, because we’re living together, but I don’t want you to feel any pressure. If you get to a point and want us to slow down, just say so.”
Frankie blew out a breath. “I’m surprised. I’ve never been in a relationship like this.”
“I don’t know how it will go, but I think we’ll be good together.”
She hugged him close, and he relaxed against her.
This felt right, like they were supposed to be together.
He’d spent a long time thinking about his past mistakes, and it felt like none of that mattered with Frankie by his side.
Maybe things would be different with her, maybe they could both get it right.