“I had a weird dream last night,” Angel said, pulling her out of her thoughts.
He hadn’t said a word in a while. Sarah turned to him. He was staring straight ahead, his perfectly square jaw flexing ever so slightly, and the telling eyebrow at alert.
“I dreamed you lied to me.”
Feeling her heart speed up, Sarah stared at him but said nothing and waited for him to continue.
“It wasn’t a bad lie,” he went on, staring straight ahead. “The guys had talked me into making you an engagement ring rather than buying you one. They said it’d be more thoughtful, so I did, and it was ugly as shit.”
Normally something like this would have him smiling. Sarah felt like smiling, but he looked so serious she couldn’t.
“I proposed and gave it to you, and you said you liked it—said it was really nice.” He glanced at her now, not a sign of a smile, not even a twinkle in those eyes that locked on hers for a moment, and then he looked back at the road. “You were lying out of tact to save my feelings, but I saw it clear as day. Even though you hardly ever do it, it’s so obvious when you’re not telling me the truth or even holding back from telling me something. Like tonight.”
“What?”
“When I asked you, Sarah,” he said, noticeably gripping the wheel a little tighter, “if there was anything else Leo calls you or says to you that might turn my stomach, you said ‘no.’”
He stopped short of calling her a liar, but she knew it was what he was saying because he’d hit it right on the nose. Only just like in his dream she hadn’t lied out of malice. She just hadn’t wanted to make him more upset than he already was.
Angel turned to face her, only this time he didn’t look tense or mad. He looked . . . worried? “Why are you lying to me, baby?”
“I’m not,” she said, reaching out for his hand, but he kept it on the steering wheel.
“Ever since you started talking to Leo, something’s changed.”
“No, it hasn’t!” she said, beginning to feel her throat tighten. “Don’t say that.”
“Yes, it has.” He banged the steering wheel, raising his voice, but he wasn’t mad. He sounded almost panicked. “You would’ve never taken off to Havasu like you did before you met him!”
“That had nothing to do with him,” she said, just as alarmed and shocked that he’d think that. “I didn’t even know he was gonna be there. Is that what you’ve been thinking all this time? That I went there because of him?”
He didn’t respond to that, and Sarah turned to look at the road. “Pull over,” she said, calmly at first but then a little louder. “I said pull over!”
Angel started the slow merge off to the right side of highway, and she could see he was going to exit off the next ramp. “Why are you lying?” he asked, calmer this time as they pulled into an abandoned campsite parking lot.
She didn’t respond to that, just stared out the window at the flurries that were beginning to come down, trying to decide how much he needed to know.
“‘Are you feeling something for him?”
Her head literally jerked in his direction. “Are you crazy? How can you even ask me that?”
“I don’t know!” he said, putting the car in park, then turned to her and began to let it all out. “I don’t know what to think. This whole thing is crazy—weird. He’s f**king weird. He sends his sister near-naked photos of himself then brings her roses, and after hearing him call you baby girl tonight, I don’t know what to think, Sarah! I’d never call my sister that, and I’ve known her all my life. This guy’s known you, what? Three months? It’s just too damn weird, and he calls and talks to you ’til late at night. Sydney doesn’t even do that!” He stopped for a moment and peered at her almost as if he had to think about that but then went on. “I mean where’s this guy’s girlfriend? Doesn’t he have a social life? Am I supposed to believe he’d rather be talking to his sister—my girl—late into the night than some other chick?”
He finally stopped and took a deep breath, looking out his window. Sarah reached for his hand. It was off the steering wheel and resting on his thigh now. She took it and laced her fingers through it. Angel turned to look at her, his expression still completely exasperated. “I wasn’t lying to you, okay?” She shook her head, took a deep breath, and decided it’d be better if she just came clean. “You know he calls me beautiful,” she began, and Angel immediately interrupted her.
“No, I don’t,” he said, tugging his hand back, but she held it tightly. “You never told me that.”
“You saw the very first email he sent me—”
“He said you were beautiful,” Angel said, and she could see he was trying his best to stay calm. “More than once, but he didn’t call you beautiful, and, yeah, I thought it was weird, but it’s still different. So he calls you beautiful, huh? What else?”
Sarah gulped, beginning to regret having done this, but she was determined to be as honest as she could. “He sometimes shortens what he called me tonight,” she said, bracing herself for that to sink in.
She saw as the confusion washed over his face for moment, and then his brows shot up. “Baby?” he asked. “He calls you baby? Are you f**king kidding me?”
Sarah took her seatbelt off and climbed over the center console of his car, startling him at first. “Push the seat back a little,” she said.