Birthright

hurt.”
    “You didn’t sleep with her?”
    “Not her, not anyone else. There was no one but you, not from the first minute I saw you.”
    She had to turn away. She’d convinced herself he’d been unfaithful. It was the only way she could bear being without him. The only thing that had stopped her from running after him.
    “I thought you had. I was sure you had.” She had to sit again, so merely slid down the door. “ She made sure I believed it.”
    “She didn’t like you. She was jealous of you. If she made a play for me . . . Okay, she did make one, it was only because I was yours.”
    “She left her bra in our room.”
    “Her what? Christ.”
    “Half under the bed,” Callie continued. “Like she’d missed it when she got dressed again. I could smell her in the room when I walked in. Her perfume. And I thought, our bed. He brought that bitch to our bed. It tore me to pieces.”
    “I didn’t. I can only tell you I didn’t. Not in our bed, not anywhere. Not her, Callie, not anyone, since the first time I touched you.”
    “Okay.”
    “Okay?” he repeated. “That’s it?”
    She felt a tear spill over and swiped it away. “I don’t know what else to say.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me about this when it happened?”
    “Because I was afraid. I was afraid if I showed you the proof, what seemed like undeniable proof, you’d admit it. If you’d said, yeah, you slipped but it wouldn’t happen again, I’d’ve let it go. So I got mad,” she said with a sigh. “Because I’d rather be mad than hurt or afraid. I got mad because if I was mad I could stand up under it, I could stand up to it. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know how to do it.”
    He sat down in front of her so their knees bumped. “We’ve been making some progress on being friends this time.”
    “I guess we have.”
    “We could keep doing that. And I can work on remembering you’re a girl while you work on trusting me.”
    “I believe you, about Veronica. That’s a start.”
    He took her hand. “Thanks.”
    “I still want to yell at you when I need to.”
    “That’s fine. I still want to have sex with you.”
    She sniffled, knuckled away another tear. “Right now?”
    “I’d never say no, but maybe it could wait. You know,we never got around to taking that trip west and seeing my family after we got married.”
    “I don’t think this is a good time to zip out to Arizona.”
    “No.” But he could take her there, with words. Maybe he could show her a part of himself he’d never thought to share before.
    “My father . . .he’s a good man. Quiet, dependable, hardworking. My mother’s strong and tolerant. They make a good team, a reliable unit.”
    He looked down at her hand, began to play with her fingers. “I don’t remember ever hearing either one of them say they loved the other. Not out loud, anyway. I don’t remember either of them ever saying it to me. I knew they did, but we didn’t talk about it. If I were to phone my parents and tell them I loved them, they’d both be embarrassed. We’d all be embarrassed.”
    She’d never considered the three most basic words in the human language could embarrass him, or anyone. “You’ve never said it to anyone?”
    “I’ve never thought about it but, no, I guess I haven’t—if you’re sure the I-love-your-body thing doesn’t count.”
    “It doesn’t.” She felt a warm, unexpected wave of tenderness for him, and brushed his hair away from his face. “We never told each other much about our families. Though you’re getting a crash course on mine these days.”
    “I like your family. Both of them.”
    She rested her head back against the door. “We always talked about our feelings in my house. What we were feeling, why we were feeling it. I doubt a day went by when I didn’t hear my parents say I love you—to me or to each other. Carlyle did a better job than he could possibly know in connecting the Cullens and the Dunbrooks.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Big emotions, verbalized. I’ll show you.”
    She got up, took the shoe box out of her duffle. “I’ve read them all now. I’ll just pick one at random.”
    She did so now, then brought the letter back, sat on the floor.
    “Go ahead,” she told him. “Read it. It’ll make my point. Any one of them would.”
    He opened the envelope, unfolded the letter.
    Dear Jessica,
    Happy birthday, sweet sixteen. How excited you must be today. Sixteen is such an important