He’s different today, and I’m silently analyzing him from my wooden stool even though I know I’m not supposed to examine people. His hands shake as he picks out the tools he needs from the old red chest, and he’s on his sixth cigarette since I got here.

“What’s wrong?” I finally ask him, after almost an hour has gone by and he’s barely said a word or even looked at me. It’s been a week since our disastrous kiss and, up until today, I thought everything was okay between us. Now I’m not so sure.

“Nothing.” He continues to hammer a piece of metal around a thin cylinder until I get up and grab the tool from his hand and lay it on the workbench.

“You’re lying.” I try to say it as unaccusingly as I can.

“I have work to do,” he says gruffly.

“Why won’t you look at me or talk to me today? Do you want me to leave?”

His eyes close for a long moment, and his hands grip the edge of the workbench. “No,” he says under his breath. “Not at all.”

“Then can you please tell me what’s bothering you? You can tell me anything.”

His head snaps up, and he looks at me with a strange, unnerving smile on his face. “Really? Anything?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Fine.” He picks up a rag and wipes his hands on it then tosses it onto his tool chest. “I almost fucked my sister last night.”

I take a step backward and wait for him to laugh or tell me he’s kidding, but he just stands there.

“Oh,” I say. “That’s unexpected.”

“You have no fucking idea. Last night was the first time I’ve seen her in a few years.”

I close my mouth when I realize it’s hanging open. “I’m a lot confused.”

He touches my cheek with his thumb and then quickly pulls his hand away. “Join the club, sugar. I’m a lot fucked up.” I love it when he calls me sugar, but my insides are all sorts of twisted up over him and his sister and how strange he’s acting. Maybe he really is sick mentally, and it’s taken this long for it to come to light.

“This is coming out all wrong,” he says, reaching up to tie his hair back.

“I hope so.”

“Let’s go sit.” He grabs my hand and leads me outside to the garden bench. Boomer and Poppy trail after us and look at us expectantly, waiting—just as I am—while he lights up a cigarette.

“Everything about you is driving me fucking crazy. Your perfume, your voice, the shape of your lips, how you make me smile, how you look cute and innocent one minute and all fucking sexy as hell the next.” He swallows and coughs. “I can’t deal with this shit.”

“Oh.” I push my hair out of my face. I had no idea he felt this way. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I like it.” He takes a long drag on his cigarette. “Too much.”

I hang on to that space between him liking it and too much. The contradiction confuses me. Boomer nudges my hand with his black leathery nose, and I pet his head while I try to make sense of what Ty is saying.

“Is it possible to like something too much?” I ask.

“Fuck yeah.”

“I didn’t know that.”

He flicks the flame of his lighter on, then off, then on, then off.

“So last night…I contacted an escort.”

I narrow my eyes at him, my confusion mounting. “An escort?” Have I seen those on TV? I can’t remember.

“Upscale fuck-for-hire, basically. Like a professional hooker.”

“Oh.” My vocabulary has greatly dwindled during this conversation.

“So I went to the hotel room, and the girl came in. And as soon as she started to talk, I recognized her voice.”

The puzzle pieces instantly form a vivid picture in my mind, and my stomach turns. “The escort girl was your sister?”

Nodding, he leans back against the bench and stares up at the clouds. “Yup. Seriously fucking embarrassing. Just my luck, though.”

Tears threaten to burst from my eyes, and my stomach roils. Intense jealousy, shock, fear, and sadness all clash inside me. Processing so many feelings at once is completely rattling. I swallow hard and let out a shaky breath. “Have you…been with an escort before?” If he says yes, my heart will shatter right here on this garden bench.

“No.” He replies. “Never.”

My relief only lasts a few seconds. “Why this time?”

“You don’t want to know, Holly.”

“Yes I do.” Do I?

He smashes his cigarette out with his boot. “Because ever since I kissed you, I’m out of my friggin’ head thinking about what your skin feels like. What you taste like and how it would feel to have your thighs wrapped around my fucked-up head. Because I don’t want you to move five fucking hours away from me. That’s why.”

My heart catapults up into my throat, and a tingly sensation spreads from my chest down to my toes. His admission creates a battle inside me, and I have no idea which side will win. The fear of a man touching me and hurting me again? Or the desire to be touched, loved, and wanted? “Oh,” I breathe.

“Yeah,” he says. “Oh.”

I have to know more. “Then…why… why an escort?”

“Because I can’t touch you.”

Once again, my heart jumps, and I’m starting to worry this conversation is going to send me into cardiac arrest. “Why not?”

“I just can’t.”

I count to ten in my head. This is definitely one of those crazy real-life moments Dr. Reynolds told me I would eventually encounter. “Because of what happened to me?” I ask. “That’s why you can’t touch me?”

“That’s part of it.”

I’ve never felt more unwanted than I do right now. And that’s saying a lot.

“What’s the other part?”

He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “Let’s not do this, okay?”

“No. I think we should talk. Please…” I can’t possibly let this conversation go. It will eat at me and eat at me, and I won’t sleep for days, wondering about every little word and detail.

“Holly, look at me. Look at you. I look like someone beat me with a whole lotta ugly, sugar.” He turns, but all I see is a beautiful man who finally trusts me enough to not hide behind hair hanging over half his face anymore.

“I don’t see anything wrong with you. You’re perfect.”

“You’re blind. I’m a fucking mess, inside and out. And you? You’re gorgeous, but I think on the inside you’re a still a little bit messed up too, and I’ll only make you worse. We had proof of that a few days ago. You deserve better. You need better.”

“I don’t. I need you.”

He shakes his head back and forth. “It’s just wrong for us. Trust me.”

I wonder how long he’s felt this way. I’ve been daydreaming about him more and more. Not to the graphic degree that he described, but in my own way. I’ve been hoping he would kiss me again, now that I know what to expect.

“Ty…do you think I don’t want to be touched? Do you think I don’t want you to touch me? Am I disgusting to you?” My voice rises in pitch. “Because of what happened to me? And because of how I reacted the other day?”

“No. None of that. I’m just not the right guy for you.”

He says it right to my face, his beautiful blue eyes drilling into mine, but I don’t think he believes his words any more than I do.

“Isn’t that for me to decide?”

He gives me his lopsided grin. “I’m not the prince on the white horse, Holly. I’m just a fucked-up ugly loser on an old beat-up motorcycle.”

“You’re not any of those things,” I say. “What if you are the right guy?”

His head shakes back and forth. “I’m not. Not for you. Probably not for anyone.”

Hearing him say that rips my heart apart, and tears spill down my cheeks as my entire body trembles and I start to sob uncontrollably. “Why not?” I beg.”What’s wrong with me? And why do you think something’s wrong with you?”

He stands and pulls me up with him. “Holly…I don’t want you getting this upset. No more talking. Come on.” He takes my hand again, and I follow him into the house, where he sets me on the couch, kneels in front of me, and takes off my shoes.

“Lie down,” he whispers, and when I do, he pulls the blanket off the back of the couch and gently places it over me. “You’re beautiful.” His fingers trace the curve of my jaw. “And you’re perfect. You deserve all the love in the world.” His scratchy voice is soft, oddly soothing, caressing my soul and seeping into the deep cracks that threaten to break me. I wish he would let his walls down and let this sweet side show more often. I know in my heart this side is the man he was meant to be.

“I only want your love,” I whisper.

“You have my love,” he whispers back. “It’s just not enough.”

He’s wrong. How could love not be enough?

“I want you to rest here with me, and we’ll talk about all this later when you’re calmer. I won’t let you cry here, Holly. This is where we’re safe, with the trees and the squirrels and the birds and Boomer and Poppy. Nobody hurts us here.” His hand strokes my head, and his lips brush lightly across my cheek. I want to reach for him and pull him down under the blanket with me, feel his warm, strong body wrapped around mine, and stay here with him forever.

Instead, he sits on the floor, leaning his back against the front of the couch, his head near mine, and opens a book to read while I rest. Poppy has jumped up on the couch to curl up on my feet, and Boomer has squished himself up into a ball on Ty’s lap.

I have no idea what love is supposed to be like, but I can’t imagine it can be any better than what we have right here. He just has to open his eyes and see it.