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together, like we’d done for years, and out of nowhere he kissed me.”
    “Sounds like he thought of you as a bit more than a friend.”
    “At the moment, I guess. But everything went wrong.”
    “The kiss?”
    “No, the actual kiss was quite nice. But the guy who I was dating walked in on us.” She winced.
    Daniel groaned. “That couldn’t have gone well.”
    “That’s an understatement. He had some choice words for us and ran off. Then Todd told me he was sorry he’d kissed me. He’d been jealous, and it had been an impulse. Things were never the same between us after that. I lost my boyfriend and my best friend in one afternoon.”
    “Total dick,” Daniel announced.
    Marienne shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
    “Worse?” He glanced at her again.
    “I didn’t have the best luck or judgment when it came to boyfriends. My first serious boyfriend was secretly dating his high school girl friend the entire two years we were together. He was using me to make her jealous.”
    “Ouch,” Daniel said. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had spoken so freely with him. It felt nice to be trusted, and he felt unexpectedly close to her.
    “The next guy I dated was fun, for about three weeks, then I came home from class and found him in my bed having sex with the girl who played guitar in his band.”
    The idea of someone hurting her made him surprisingly angry and protective. “What instrument did he play?”
    “Drums.”
    “Ahh, that’s too bad, if he played keyboard I’d have suggested we create a new category for him—’Total Pianist’.”
    Marianne giggled. The sound sent a thrill of pleasure through Daniel.
    “Surely you must have met some nice guys.”
    “Yes, I just didn’t date any of them. At one point I was ready to give up dating altogether, but then my friend Kevin confessed he’d been in love with me for years. I already knew we got along great, so I thought ‘why not?’ But I wasn’t in love with him, and after a few weeks I told him we should go back to being just friends. Then things got a little crazy.”
    “Crazy how?” The annoyance he felt towards these guys bubbled inside him.
    “I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.”
    “You don’t have to answer if I’m being too nosy.”
    Marienne smiled. “You’re not being nosy. I’m the one babbling. I don’t know why anyone would want to hear all this.”
    “I’m curious by nature,” he said. “Besides, my own life has always been so painfully boring that I like to live vicariously through other people’s stories.”
    “I find it hard to believe your life has been boring,” she said.
    “Oh, dreadfully. First girl I ever slept with seduced me then told me I really wasn’t very good.”
    Marienne snorted.
    “True story,” Daniel said then quickly added, in a Monty Python voice, “I got better.”
    Marienne laughed, and he was relieved. Did I really just tell her that the first woman I had sex with said I wasn’t very good at it? He’d never told anyone about that. No one.
    The conversation paused and Marienne took a deep breath. “He tried to kill himself,” she said, her voice quiet.
    “What?”
    “You asked how crazy, that’s the answer, he tried to kill himself…after the begging and stalking, and threatening didn’t work.”
    “Oh my God.” He tried to imagine what that must have been like. Anger surfaced protectively again. “That must have been awful.” What a complete and total dick .
    “It was. I felt like it was my fault.”
    “It wasn’t. You can’t blame yourself for other people’s actions. He chose to do all those things to try to bully you into doing what he wanted. I can’t imagine anything more defining of a complete dick. I’m sorry you had to experience that.”
    “Thank you for saying that.” The breathless sound of her voice made Daniel smile.
    “So, no crazy stalker chicks in your past?” Ahh, she’s trying to change the subject. “Not really. There was one