"Were you trying to hurt me?"
"You wanted to mess this thing up before we got our hopes up that maybe it might actually work."
"So you - made out with some random to protect me from my own hopeful heart?"
"Bull."
He replayed her words over and over in his head not just on the walk back to his trailer, but also later that night after everything with Noah was over and done with...and in his dreams and all through the next morning. He tried to make sense of his own muddled thinking, his impetuous actions of the last two weeks.
He was hurting over the loss of Max, sure, but he wasn't intentionally trying to hurt Maria...not really, not like she thought he was. Hurting her was more a side effect of his dual intent to protect both her and himself. The pain in his damaged hand had been his reminder for so long and had worked so well that when he lost that - when Max healed it - he was left adrift and flailing for some replacement security. Wouldn't you know it, he found that security in being an ass. He needed to remember and if he could only manage to do that by being a total dick to Maria, well, at least they weren't involved in any truly intimate relationship...it could be a lot worse.
But he really didn't want to hurt her. What he wanted was for her to realize that she was so much better off without him around to screw everything up in her life. He wanted her to walk away from him just like Alex had done so many times before...except Maria wasn't Alex and he just kept on hurting her over and over again because Maria stuck around. Maria - crazy, psychic, dance like there's no one watching Maria - was one of the solid pillars in his life. It was probably one of the first things that drew him into her orbit, made him watch her from afar even when they were kids and teenagers. She was always there. She was always the same non-judgmental, stable force to be reckoned with whether she was serving drinks behind the bar at the Wild Pony or singing karaoke in some dive in Texas.
She had been right about him wanting to mess everything up on purpose though. Dashing both their hopes early on was a far better choice than sticking around and waiting for her to get her reality crushed when everything finally hit the fan. He didn't want to see the expression in her eyes go from warm to wary when she looked at him...looking confused and hurt was bad enough but he couldn't quite take the thought of her one day learning what he truly was and being afraid of him because of it.
Unfortunately, she knew it was all a ruse and she had called him on it. Yep, his behavior was total and complete bull and she had said so. Because, Maria, like it or not, did have that psychic vibe going for her pretty strong...not to mention that she knew him way too well.
What in the hell was he going to do about it now? The problem was that he had absolutely no idea.