He’d never admit to it, but I could see all over Kai’s face that something wasn’t right. Where I’d expected him to come out of his talk with Jason feeling lighter and free, instead it looked like it’d had the opposite effect. My heart hammered in my chest, and sweat laced my palms.

This was supposed to have been the turnaround, the part where we figured everything out and did what we needed to do to be together, be happy. So why was I getting the feeling that things were about to go to hell in a handbasket?

Jason was hovering nearby the kitchen, but he seemed to be his normal self like he wasn’t concerned. What the hell had I missed? What had he said to Kai to screw this all up, or had he said anything at all? Maybe they hadn’t even had a discussion yet, maybe Jason hadn’t had the chance to pull Kai aside and talk to him like he’d told me he would.

Still, panic gripped me, clawed its way up my throat like a man buried alive trying to get out, and I needed clarity as fast as I could get it. I would’ve given anything to forget all about it, pretend like everything was fine, but there was no way my body was going to allow that to happen.

“You okay?” I asked, feeling out the waters.

“So-so,” he answered, shrugging at me.

“Do we need to talk?” I asked, my voice low so Jason wouldn’t overhear us, though he wasn’t stupid. He would put two and two together and figure out that something was going on between us. Almost as if on cue, he disappeared into the kitchen to leave us alone.

“We do, but now is not the right time,” Kai said.

“If not now, when? I mean, I’m not tryin’ to pressure you into anything you don’t want to do, but this is making me a little crazy. I thought things would be better today, you know, after our last talk,” I said.

“So did I, but things don’t always go the way we think they’re going to, do they?” he asked. He was being vague, and it was making me crazy, even crazier than I already felt. This was supposed to be a good day, an easy, fun day between the three of us now that everything was squared away. I had a long conversation with Jason over the phone before work today, and he was stunned that either of us would even be worried about what he would think or do if he found out we were seeing each other.

If anything, he was supportive, the best kind of supportive anybody could ask for. Given the circumstances, and the fact that our relationship was a little odd, I couldn’t have asked for better. Which brought me back to Jason—was it something he’d said that’d tipped the boat between Kai and me again?

“No, screw this, we’re talking, and we’re talking now,” I said. “I can’t take this not knowing anymore. I feel like you’re hot and cold, one minute you’re a bundle of energy and ready to go, and the next minute you don’t seem to want anything to do with me. What’s going on?” I asked, and he sighed, looking down at his feet. It was a habit of his that I realized he relied on when he didn’t know what to say, or when whatever he had to say wasn’t going to go over well.

Sure, this wasn’t the best time or the best place to be having this conversation, especially as we were both about to start our work shifts, and it could put a damper on the entire rest of the day, but I would rather that happen than not know where we stood, where we were going from here.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” I asked. I knew I was dumping on him, but I couldn’t hold it in anymore. He had this crazy effect on me, made me say and do things I would never have normally done—which was why we ended up in this position in the first place.

“I can’t keep leading you on like this,” he said.

“Leading me on? What in seven hells are you talking about?” I asked.

“I don’t know if it’s right for us to keep seeing each other with things the way they are,” he said, and I felt like he’d punched me square in the jaw and followed it up with a knee to my gut. I’d seen it coming, had seen the writing on the wall, but it still couldn’t have prepared me for this. How could it? I’d gotten so close to him, shared so many things with him in such a small amount of time, and it was intense. I appreciated it, loved it in fact, but maybe a candle burning that brightly has to be burning at both ends and eventually flare out.

“Are you… breaking up with me?” I asked, barely able to get the words out. I felt like my mouth was full of mud like I had to chew through a steaming pile to talk.

“I wouldn’t say it like that,” he said, looking over his shoulder to make sure Jason wasn’t there. He wasn’t, and the bar wasn’t open yet, so we weren’t in any jeopardy of being overheard, but at that point, I didn’t care if anybody did overhear.

“If that’s not how you would put it, then how the hell would you put it? Jesus, Kai, I thought we had something going here, I thought we talked this all out, so what changed?” I asked, throwing my hands up in the air. My face burned, and my heart hammered in my ears. More than anything I was hurt, but I didn’t want him to see that right now, didn’t want to give him the vulnerability. All he deserved right now was my anger, and that’s exactly what came out.

“It’s not easy for me, you have to understand that,” he said.

“I do understand it, and I thought I made that clear last night, but maybe not. What do you want from me, Kai? I’ve tried my best to be understanding, I’ve tried to be patient, but this is getting crazy,” I said.

“I know it is, that’s exactly why I’m throwing in the towel,” he said. He reached out for me, but I ducked away from it. “Don’t be like that, please, this isn’t anything to do with you or with us. I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t feed me that ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ bullshit,” I spat and stepped back from him before he had the chance to try to touch me again. I didn’t want to be comforted, didn’t want to be patronized, I just wanted answers, and I wanted them now.

“It’s not bullshit; it’s the truth. I’m terrified of what’s going to happen when and if my parents find out about what’s going on between us, and I don’t want to lose you later on down the road when they yank me out of here because I’m not behaving how they want me to, not representing the image they want me to,” I said.

“Why don’t you just call a spade a spade? The reason you’re doing this is that your god damn money is more important to you than I ever was,” I said. I hadn’t meant for the words to come out, but the anger that’d been bubbling at the back of my throat, trickling down into the pit of my stomach like sludge, had ignited.

His face fell, and tears appeared in his eyes, and for a brief moment I worried I’d caused irreparable damage, but the worry passed quickly when I realized he’d been the one who hurt me first.

“How could you say that? After everything I told you, everything I shared with you,” he said.

“I can say it because of what you’re doing, right here, right now. You fed me the story that you wanted to be with me, that you wanted to try to find a way to make things work. You came into my house, you took my hospitality, you took my goddamn heart, and now you’re throwin’ it on the ground and pissing on it. You made your choice, so good for you, I hope your money keeps you company when it’s all you’ve got left in life,” I said. A choking sound came from his mouth as I whirled around and stormed into the kitchen.

“Mike, what the hell’s going on out—” Jason started, but I held up a hand to shush him. He’d been standing by the door all along, no doubt listening to the whole thing go down.

“Save it; I need to be alone. I’m calling in sick for the rest of the day,” I said.

“I understand,” Jason said and didn’t bother trying to stop me again. Not that he would’ve been able to anyway. I needed some space, needed some fresh air, needed to get the hell out of that place and as far away from Kai as was humanly possible. I should’ve known from the second he stepped through the door that he was trouble—and at some level I did, though I had no idea how much trouble he would be for me in the end.

How stupid I’d been, how shortsighted. What happened between us should never have happened in the first place, for a number of reasons, but I’d let it, and now I had to pay the price. I had nobody to blame for this but myself, and that was the worst part. As if it weren’t bad enough that I’d gone through a terrible breakup with Scott, been left behind once by a guy who was more concerned with looks and appearance, now I had another one just like him on my record.

It was unbelievable. How could anybody behave like that? How could anyone choose to live a fake life over being with somebody who made them genuinely happy, even if there were problems in the relationship? Kai hadn’t even really given us a chance to figure things out; he’d run as soon as he saw trouble brewing, saw the potential for him to lose his fortune.

Where once before I understood where he was coming from, that understanding had evaporated because now I saw it without rose-colored glasses. The reason he’d opened up to me at all, told me the stuff about him and his past, wasn’t because he was trying to figure things out and assure me that he wanted to be with me. No, it was because he was trying to butter me up so that when this split inevitably happened—and it was inevitable, whether or not I saw it at the time—he would have something to fall back on, some rationale for what he’d done.

Still, even knowing all that, I couldn’t help thinking it was somehow my fault like I could’ve stopped him from doing it—or that the whole reason he’d cut me off was that I was who I was, a simple hick. Kai talked so much about image, and his parents’ obsession with it, and what they would think if they knew he and I were an item, so it made it difficult to think of any other explanation. The fact of the matter was that though he might’ve had real feelings for me, he didn’t want to risk being seen with a big, burly, unkempt southern dude because he was terrified it would take his money away from him.

They say first impressions are everything, and my first impression of Kai had been spot on, even though I had been led to believe it wasn’t. I had moments where I thought there was more to him than met the eye, that he wasn’t just some superficial superstar gym bunny, but boy, was I wrong.

There was nothing more to him than the poise and plastic I’d seen from him the first time he’d stepped through the doors of the bar. I knew he was trouble, even tried to tell Jason and the others he would be, but none of them listened, and I’d allowed myself to be convinced by the rest of them I was wrong. Man, they better damn well be eating some serious crow soon.

I didn’t know how I could continue in the job, and maybe this was part of what Kai had been concerned about all along—that if things went south between us, he would get tossed to the curb, or we would be forced to work together in a very awkward situation. No matter how I sliced it, it had always been about him; it was never about me. Still, Second Chances was part of my DNA, and I couldn’t imagine myself going anywhere else for work, so what was I supposed to do?

I should’ve known better. The words kept repeating in my head as I stormed down Main Street, paying no attention to any of the people who passed me, who probably thought I looked like some unhinged ax murderer in the making. I glanced at myself in the glass as I passed a shop, all red-faced and slobbery from crying, tears I hadn’t even realized I’d been shedding, but I didn’t give a damn.

Scott should have been enough for me to learn my lesson, but he hadn’t been. I still needed to be shown I couldn’t trust any man, much less a man so concerned with status and appearances. I should’ve known that as soon as I let my guard down, let Kai weasel his way into my feelings, that he’d decide I wasn’t good enough.

Never again. I would see to it that this never happened to me again, even if it meant I had to spend the rest of my days surrounded by people I could only call friends and nothing more. I would also make sure that I never doubted my gut feelings ever again, no matter what somebody like Jason might say about my superstitions.

Jason’s words flashed in my head at the thought. Back when he’d asked me about the times, my gut feelings were wrong. I couldn’t help wondering that myself now. My gut feeling about Kai hadn’t been wrong after all, but I’d been fooled into thinking it was. What did that say about me?

It said I still had a whole hell of a lot to learn.