She shrugged as if it were no big deal. “He drove me from the site, remember?”
My grip tightened on the wheel because while I usually found her smart-ass remarks charming, today I was in no mood for that mouth. “I meant. Why didn’t you wait for me in my office or go back to the hotel?”
“I didn’t want to. I wanted to talk to someone.”
“And Vince is who you decide to talk to? Not your friends but the same motherfucker we discussed before?”
“You said no flirting, and he didn’t flirt.”
I didn’t believe it for a fucking minute and neither did she.
“Okay. So what did you two talk about?”
“The weather.”
That fucking mouth.
I shot her a warning glare, and she straightened up. “Try again.”
“We talked about law school.”
What?
“Law school?”
“Yes. He wanted to be a lawyer, so he asked me about law school.”
I looked at her, unable to tell if she was lying while trying to keep us on the road.
“And that’s all you talked about?”
“No,” she admitted. “We talked about what happened today at the site, too.”
My eyes went back to the road. “You shouldn’t have gone to that site today, Carmen. We could’ve handled this outside of that.”
“Well, where you pitch the tent is where we’ll have the circus. You can’t do shit to me and then try to police where and how I react, especially after you fuck with my job. Maybe if you hadn't done that bullshit in the first place, I wouldn’t have reacted the way I did in the moment. And then maybe I wouldn’t have to go to your job and call you out on it.”
“It’s not about calling me out, Carmen. It wasn’t safe.”
She scoffed, her eyes narrowing. “I don’t need to be babied.”
I clenched the steering wheel tighter. “You could’ve been hurt, Carmen.”
Her laugh was short and sharp, and it stung worse than I expected. “Oh, please. You’re just pissed because I did something you didn’t like.”
“You did a lot of shit I didn’t like.”
“You did shit I didn’t like too! You’re not innocent in this, Theodore. You can’t just do things and not expect a reaction. This ain’t about my safety. This is about you being scared and doing shit behind my back because you’re worried about losing control!”
I bit back the sharp response I had because her words gnawed at me.
The last thing I wanted was to turn into one of those men. The men she ran from before we got together. The controlling, overprotective, territorial boyfriend. A role I never saw myself in, especially after I saw what it did to her and Micah. But damn it, I hated seeing her put herself in danger when I knew the risks. I hated even more that she was around other men, especially Vince.
Again.
I couldn’t stand it, and I didn’t know why. But that can of worms could wait until I wasn’t driving. I stole another glance at her, watching the way her shoulders tensed.
“I’m not trying to control you, Carmen. I’m trying to keep you safe. There’s a difference.”
