"I dunno." His smile was a little sad. "She's got--" Hmm. How did he put it without sounding like a jerk? "Trust issues," he concluded, falling back on a cliche that made him sound like a jerk anyway, but it was true. It wasn't easy for Valerie to trust people and she had already alerted him to the fact that she didn't trust him.

"And I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to girls."