Читать книгу Medical Romance July 2016 Books 1-6 - Lynne Marshall, Amalie Berlin - Страница 14
ОглавлениеON THE FLIGHT down to Virginia, Grace once more had Liam with his foot propped up, shoe off and a cold pack placed over those injured ligaments.
It seemed she’d no sooner settled herself in her dress than they were out of the plane and in a limo.
It all happened so fast. They stopped at the curbside where the carpet started, and when Liam had his cane in position and her on his other arm, he moved her forward.
People, screaming and cheering, lined both sides. Flashes came from all directions. A quaint refurbished theater with gilded fixtures on tall, heavy doors awaited them after a blessedly short carpet walk. Liam shook hands as they went, posed for pictures, took a couple selfies with a fan, then a number of group selfies with cameras Grace funneled toward him and then back to the crowd.
And then they were inside the theater, a manager leading them through to a back exit where the limo waited.
Grace couldn’t swear she’d even taken a single breath before it was all over and they were back at the airport, with her once more settling a cold pack on his ankle.
“You all right?” Liam asked.
When she looked at him, he nodded to the seat beside him. “They want us buckled in so we can get back into the air.”
“Right. Right...” She gathered her dress as best she could to prevent wrinkling, and sat down.
“You look shell-shocked, Gracie. Want something to drink?”
“No. I’m fine. I just... That was... A lot.”
“Not to scare you but that was small. The next one will be much bigger. But it was overwhelming to you because it was your first. That’s over. You’ve done it now, and we won’t be in such a rush to get through the next one. Just lean back and breathe.”
Breathe. She didn’t really have anything to do but make sure Liam didn’t walk all over the place. And she was very good at walking.
* * *
“Do you always go from one right to another one?” Grace asked Liam, sitting by the door in the back of the limo as it spirited them through crowded evening streets toward the New York theater.
“It’s not unheard of, but not usually. We were on location in Virginia for three months, and the film was based on a book written by a local author, who’s like a hometown hero to them. So that’s why it was scheduled.”
“I get that,” she said, “But why have two on one day?”
“Sometimes they hold the theater launch back until after the premiere. Though it’s pretty common to have more than one, and they don’t want to hold the film any longer than necessary. It’s all decided by the marketing people for best impact. I just go where they tell me.”
He scooted a little closer and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him. “You thought it was all fancy parties where everyone stood around telling each other how amazing they looked, and drinking too much.”
“Actually, I thought you all got dressed up, but then behaved like it was a frat party, with gobs of public nudity and body shots,” she filled in, grinning at him. His heat felt good at her side. It was still summer, and the Virginia carpet had been hot, but the air-conditioning on both the jet and in the cars had been high enough to chill her.
Liam looked at her, the fondness in his eyes cutting through some of the chill too. Enough that she didn’t know how to respond again. He’d done that to her earlier too, when he’d said she was beautiful.
“Why are you looking like that?” she asked, needing him to stop before he confused her again.
Not that he stopped, he just smiled too. “Because you finally smiled.”
“Didn’t I smile enough in Virginia?”
“You did. But you weren’t smiling at me until now.”
She felt her cheeks going pink and forced herself to look down. He’d said she was beautiful earlier, and now he’d looked at her like she was sunshine. In one day. What her earlier self would’ve given to hear those sweet words from him.
Even so, she couldn’t keep the smile from her face right now, though she tried to edge back to the earlier subject. “My real mental image was that it was all about the after-party with champagne and wild behavior. If it is, I’d like you to keep that from me. I much prefer this, even if I’m really tired of posing for pictures.”
He let her get back to it without doing anything else that might make her emotions go haywire. “We’re skipping the after-party.”
“Oh, thank God.” That would be less time in the dress and less time with him on that foot.
“This time it will start the second we step out of the car. Hope your cheeks aren’t too sore from the last round.”
Half a block in front of them crowds had gathered, and police stood in front of barricades, directing traffic—regular traffic in one direction, and them another.
They’d just done this a couple hours ago, but he’d been sitting still since then. And when you did that with an injury... “Remember to use the cane more when you first put your weight on the leg. It’s been resting for a while, so that pain is going to scream through your leg when you first—”
“I know. I’ve figured that part out.” His hand moved to cup her bare shoulder, the pad of his thumb stroking the front curve.
The car stopped and her stomach lurched with it.
“You’ve already done this once,” he said, obviously picking up on her discomfort. “You’re the belle of the ball, Grace. Just remember to smile.”
The door opened and she had to make herself move. “I’m the belle of the ball,” she whispered to herself as she accepted a hand out from the man who’d opened the door. “Thank you.” She stepped to the side, reminding herself to smile as she made room for Liam.
As soon as his handsome head appeared above the door, so many flashes went off that as she turned to look at him and check his balance, all she could see were spots in her vision.
“I’m okay, Grace,” he said, before she could ask, then slipped his hand into hers and steered her around the door so they could make the walk. “Just follow my lead. Stop when I stop. Pose and smile. Just like before. Only with more stops this time. We’ll also make a wide zig-zag path down the carpet.”
“How many zigs?” She stopped when he did and turned slightly toward him, her heel butting against the center of the other foot, just like Tom had told her to stand.
Pause. Smile. Walk.
“I don’t know. Ten.”
“Two,” she countered. “The more you zig, the more you walk. You said I was here to keep you from having to walk too much. Otherwise why am I wearing this dress?”
“Because you’re my date, and you have to wear clothes to a premiere, no matter what your freewheeling California inclinations say. Hippy.”
She laughed despite herself. “Idiot.” But his joking made her relax. “I’m willing to up to four zigs. Any more than that and I’m going to take your cane and start clubbing your fans so that they stay back.”
“Five.”
They were moving again slowly, with him waving, as they headed for the first point of the zig.
“Fine, but only because an odd number would flow better toward the door with you going in this direction first.” She quieted down as he approached the edge.
Once again, pieces of paper, magazines, pictures...things were thrust at Liam, and he dutifully signed and shook hands.
Every time he was ready to walk again she joined him and they made their way back to the other side, pausing for photos along the way, and once to speak with a camera crew who called to him for an interview.
Why was he using a cane?
Who was his date?
Was she the reason he’d broken up with Simone Andre?
Though she saw a tic in his jaw with the last question, Liam answered everything politely. Sprained ankle. Grace Watson. No. He’d begged Grace to come with him last night, and she’d miraculously been available.
At the last leg of the carpet, a very little boy at the front asked about the cane. Even though Liam had given this answer at least thirty times since that first crew had asked, he stopped in front of the boy and shifted his weight to the good leg so he could pinch the pants leg and lift it, showing the expanse of white tape poking up above his sock. “I fell down when I was running.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Oh, it hurts, but I wanted to come and have fun here tonight with everyone. Plus, they gave me a cane to use and it’s got a sword in it.” He pulled the handle up to give the boy a peek of the blade. “I couldn’t pass up a chance to use a sword cane.”
And he actually had been using the cane, and not just as a cool prop. Why he’d ever been upset to begin with still didn’t compute with her.
There was some gasping over the awesome sword cane, the boy lifting his own pants leg to show Liam his bandaged knee.
As much as she wanted to usher him right off into the theater and make him sit, make him take the weight off it, there was no way she’d interrupt wound comparisons and “I fell too” stories.
By the time she thought her face would split from smiling, the little guy’s mother opened her bag and after some digging produced and unwrapped a colorful bandage.
She watched as Liam lifted his cuff and the little boy crawled beneath the velvet rope to pull Liam’s sock down and place the bandage right over the bump of his taped ankle, a cartoon character bandage in an expanse of white tape.
Her heart squeezed as she watched. He might complain about how crowds drained him, but he loved it too. He was so sweet to the boy she had to look away briefly to banish sappy tears.
He fought to be at all these events, and it wasn’t just because he wanted his career to continue being wildly successful—although, of course, that had to factor in. It was something more.
He posed for pictures with the boy this time, and their matching bandages, then made it the last few steps into the theater.
“Let’s find where we’re sitting. I need to sit.”
“Of course you do. It still took forty-five minutes to make it into the building.”
“And that was fast, Grace. I’ve spent two hours out there before.” He leaned on the cane heavily and gestured for an usher. Soon they were being led to a small balcony to sit down. “Will we have people here with us?”
He nodded and then proceeded to name names—all of which she’d heard before, and none of whom she’d met.
Before they got there, she leaned forward in her seat to look at his leg. The tape looked tight but not tight enough to cut off circulation. She pulled the sock up for him, and set it all to rights. “Will there be any empty seats?”
He did a quick seat count and then shook his head. “Probably not.”
“Can we get a footstool brought up?”
“Oh, that we might be able to do,” he said, and then looked at her long enough to demand her attention. “You’re always concerned about my leg and pain level.”
“Of course I am.”
“Because you know how it is to have an injury?”
There was an edge to his voice, prompting her to make eye contact again in the low light of the theater.
“I’d like to think that I’d still care without that painful time in my past.”
“How did you get hurt?” He didn’t sound angry, as he had in the hotel, but there was more emotion in his voice than she’d expect from someone who’d stayed away so effectively. And who hadn’t felt the same way about her as she’d felt about him.
Even if she’d avoided asking about Liam, she’d always thought he’d probably still kept up with her through Nick. Nick was a talker, and he had spent a lot of time in the hospital with her while she’d recovered. “Nick really didn’t tell you about my accident? I thought you two told one another everything.”
“No. He never did. Which is pretty weird...”
Yes. Weird. Unless Nick knew about them. “I had a motorcycle accident when I was nineteen.”
“I never heard about you having a motorcycle either.”
“I didn’t. My boyfriend at the time... It was his motorcycle. After that, I had a lot of rehab. But it pretty much scratched professional swimmer off my career list. So I’m doing the next best thing.”
He made some sound of affirmation, but it didn’t sound settled.
Liam leaving had made her reckless, always seeking out the bad boy. That particular bad boy had made her go to the other extreme. Which made this premiere business so out of character for her that it could’ve been a joke. If someone had said to her last week that she’d be glittering from head to toe at a New York City premiere she’d have definitely thought it was some kind of joke where her dullness was the punch line. Because her life had been dull, probably. Other people would find the clientele exciting, and sometimes she did, but it was hard to be impressed by celebrities when she’d known Liam as long as she had. He was a real person, and that made them all too real and flawed as well.
Maybe they were all wounded too. Maybe it took that kind of hurt to get someone from talented to artist.
“I’m going to go find the usher,” she said, mostly because she didn’t know what else to say. “See if we can get that footstool.”
Before her musings moved onto lamentations of what she couldn’t have.
* * *
“The movie was good,” Grace said, shifting in the back seat of the limo, not sure of where or even how to sit now that their charade of a date was over. “You were good. Not that I expected anything different. But all those period costumes, I loved it. It felt like a real story. Not just all the flash-bang stuff that goes on in your action movies.”
For the entire evening she’d been pretty much plastered to Liam’s side, and now, sitting with space around her, she felt cold. And lonely. Making useless small talk also felt awkward.
“Grace Watson, are you saying you don’t like my action movies?” Unlike earlier, Liam had taken a spot up by the door, his legs stretched out in front of him.
“Still playful, that’s good. I guess your ankle isn’t hurting as much as last night?”
“You did not answer the question but you’re correct, it’s not hurting as badly as last night.”
She crossed her arms and lifted her brows, giving him her best told-you-so expression.
Liam crossed his arms in response. “You want me to say it?”
“I do. It’s a personal failing, I know, but yes. Yes, I want you to say it.” She knew she looked smug, that was the whole point of the told-you-so expression.
“You were right. I should have listened to you all along, but then I would never have gotten to have the prettiest date tonight.”
She snorted. The first couple of times he’d said it she’d been too dazed to really process the words.
“You know, the more you say it, the less I believe it.” They passed a building she hadn’t seen on the way to the theater and she stopped to get a good look at the direction in which they were traveling. “This isn’t the way to the hotel. Are we going to the airport or something?”
“No, we’re going to dinner.”
“You want me to be right some more? You need that thing up and iced—it’s been hours.”
“I need to eat too if I’m going to take one of those blessed pain-reducers, don’t I?”
“Yes, and it’s called room service.”
“I don’t want room service. I want to eat at my favorite restaurant in New York, with my date.”
She didn’t say anything. Arguing with the man had done no good in anything they’d butted heads over so far. He’d only agreed to the cane after he’d proved her case for her. “How about we get it to go?”
“No. We’re going to go in, sit at the quiet booth I’ve reserved, and if you want me to I will sling my leg up in the bench beside me to have it elevated. We can eat good food and relax with no responsibilities hanging over our heads. No one asking for interviews, or pictures. Have a little wine. Can I have wine with those pills?”
“No. I know I say that a lot, but you always want a little bit more, don’t you? I want to go to dinner. I want to eat where I want to eat. I want to have pain pills and wine.” She shook her head, but the tension she’d been feeling had already started to drain away. Probably had started the moment that he’d agreed to use the cane. It made it easier to tease him back. “How did you stay alive this long? Luck? Your looks?”
“Yep.” He reached over, wiggled an arm behind her around her waist, and slid her over to him. “Fate lets me get by with stuff because I’m too pretty to smite.”
She laughed even though she knew it just egged the fool on. “So that’s why Fate sent me. I’m immune to your prettiness.”
The car rolled to a stop and the doorman came to open their door. “You just adore me for my winning personality? Or is it my body? I feel so cheap.”
And yet he grabbed his cane and got out of the car, stepped to the side and offered her a hand.
“This is not a date,” she said, taking the offered hand if for no other reason than civility—even if she was currently ignoring the fact that navigating car doors in this dress wasn’t really in her usual skill set. “And no wine. Or I’m going to whine.”
“Fine, fine. No wine. But I’m eating red meat and you can’t stop me.” He passed her hand through the crook of his elbow and led the way inside. “I come here whenever I’m in New York, they have a couple of great private booths. And if you want, I’m sure they’ll even bring out a bag of crushed ice. Which I will use, in the interests of making my date happy.”
“This is not a date.” Grace repeated herself, this time more quietly as they wandered through the restaurant to the promised private back corner booth.
“Okay,” he whispered back. “In the interests of making happy the lovely creature who went to the movies with me, and who is now going to eat with me, I will ask for ice.”
They stopped at the booth and Liam sat on the side that would allow him to kick his leg up on the seat like the heathen he’d better well be if he wanted her to eat dinner with him.
Grace took the other side, and resisted the urge to ask for the ice. He’d said he would do it.
Knowing better than to test her on this—or at least she liked to think that was the reason—he dragged his foot up onto the seat and winked at her.
Menus were place before them and a bottle of the vintage Liam preferred presented to him. “No wine tonight. Water. Iced tea maybe?” He looked at Grace.
“Just water for me.” She looked at the menu, but the prospect of reading words seemed too much for her. “My feminist core is shrieking, but I don’t want to order. Can I just have whatever you’re having? I don’t think I have any room in my head to make any decisions right now.”
“It’s harder than it seems, eh?” he asked.
“The stop and pose, stop and smile, stop and shake hands, stop and sign things, stop and chitchat route to the movie?”
“It was better tonight. It’s always better with someone there but, you know, as much as we’ve avoided one another for the past several years, it’s been really great to have you here, Grace. I hope that’s all right for me to say.”
She smiled, looking down as she did so, and nodded. “You too. When you’re not being infuriating. I forgot how much of a playful charmer you can be. All I’ve really seen is Actor Man, he of the thousand faces, since... You know.”
She cut that thought off sharply, and scrambled for something else to say. She wouldn’t bring that subject up now. Their forty-eight hours together were almost done. From tomorrow on they could see one another once a day, she’d go back to her less glittery existence, and he’d stay out in the limelight, adored by millions.
“The little boy...”
“Brody.” He said the name she’d missed.
“You asked his name?”
“He offered it. Brody, the budding physical therapist.” He lifted his pants leg and showed off the colorful bandage still plastered to his taped ankle.
“You were really great with him. As much as you say that this stuff drains you, it doesn’t show. It didn’t show. It only showed last night because of the limping, I think, otherwise no one would’ve known.”
“I like kids. I don’t really remember ever being that age. I mean, I remember being in kindergarten and, you know, young grades, but my life was...”
Bad. She knew his childhood had been really hard. She had always known that his mother had died from an overdose, but she just didn’t know any real details. Before he’d told her about the book. That had cleared up all her confusion in a way that gave absolutely no other details. It had hurt him to even tell her that much, and it had hurt to hear it. She didn’t want him to have to go through anything else like that tonight.
“Complicated,” she offered quickly, giving him an out in case he, too, wanted to avoid dissecting painful memories.
If she had her way, she’d know every single part of him, from his past, to the way he thought, to all his future plans... But it really wasn’t her right to ask any probing personal questions. No matter how nice they both agreed it had been to be around each other again, he wasn’t going to be around that long. Once he was back on his feet, her usefulness would be at an end.
* * *
“Complicated.” Liam echoed the word. His childhood wasn’t high on his list of things to talk about tonight. The waiter arrived and he tried to think of the least drippy foods to order, and shifted conversation on.
His list of things to talk about really only had two items: that night and that trench coat.
But that felt like an after-dinner conversation. So he steered them back toward small talk, safe and focused on subjects that would make her feel comfortable.
Memories they’d shared after Liam had been placed in foster care near the Watsons’ home, and how he’d befriended Nick.
How she’d ended up at The Hollywood Hills Clinic.
Why she’d left professional sports.
Things he’d never let himself know about her, even when he’d wanted to know.
“I saw you once at a game,” he said, as their dinner plates were taken away. “You were working on one of the players’ knees. You want dessert? I want dessert.”
The dessert he wanted definitely wasn’t on the menu, but in the interest of sublimating his carnal desires...
“I don’t think I need one.”
“Split one. They have this chocolate cake thing with fruit that’s really good.” He ordered one and then took the ice off his ankle, sat up straighter, and slid toward her in the booth.
“If you don’t want to eat it, just take one bite and I’ll pretend we split it equally.”
“I could move over there to you so you could keep your foot elevated.”
“It’s okay. We’re not going to be here much longer anyway. And I think that those pain tablets are kicking in.”
With a nod, Grace went about clearing a spot between them, shifting water bottles and cutlery as needed. Keeping busy.
“Grace, I need to talk about—”
Before he even got the words out her perennially straight posture went rigid, and beneath that California glow he could see her cheeks pinking up.
She still didn’t want to talk about it.
“It’s not what you think.” He caught her hand before she could tidy any more and dragged it to his lap in the hopes that her attention followed.
“Oh, I’m sure it is.”
“The thing is—and this is pretty selfish of me—I need things to be good between us. And be honest. You don’t really owe it to me to listen to my explanations...”
“You really have nothing to explain.” This time, catching her hand didn’t settle her down and her voice rose a little as she looked everywhere but at him. “I don’t blame you. I’m not mad. It was all my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. I put you into an unwinnable situation because I was young and stupid. Inexperienced in reading people’s intentions...”
“Grace?”
“You’ve become really good at it, not that I blame you. How else are you going to keep out of those kinds of situations, especially now that you’re on the Freebie List of at least seventy percent of the married women in North America, and probably a significant number of women abroad?”
“Stop.”
“Barring sexual preferences, of course. Oh, then probably men too. I just couldn’t even ballpark a figure on that one.”
“Grace, I wanted you,” he blurted out, his heart suddenly thundering in his ears, and his confession probably carried halfway across the restaurant. The waiter arrived right then and wordlessly placed the plate between them, then placed the silverware and left.
Grace rolled the hand that he held, not pulling away but as if she couldn’t dispel the tension in her body unless she moved something.
“Take a bite of this thing. Strawberry. Chocolate brownie thing. Cream. Get all of it. One big bite.” He kept her hand, and she still didn’t pull away, but she also didn’t look at him, focusing heavily on the dessert instead.
“I’m eating more than one bite of that,” she finally said, and when he let go of her hand, she reached for her spoon.
“You don’t have anything to say about my declaration?”
She glanced up, an uneasy smile on her face now. One of her hands slipped up to cover her collarbone protectively, then gave it a little rub. “You mean besides I don’t believe you?”
“You think I’d yell that in a crowded restaurant if it was a lie?”
“I think...you’re trying to make things right.” She chose her words slowly and carefully, he could see, but the self-comforting actions had already started. “And I appreciate that, but you don’t have to.”
He reached over and pulled her hand from her chest, once more holding it in his own as the other fiddled listlessly with her spoon.
“What are you doing?”
“Comforting you,” he murmured. “You covered your jugular notch, it’s a self-comforting technique. Women often do that when they’re feeling unsettled or emotionally unsafe, while men usually rub the back of the neck... There are other things that could be called tells. Like when you got out of the pool and you saw me there, your feet were pointed toward the closest door, and I knew you wanted to run.”
“I wanted to go to the locker room and get dressed. And please don’t do that,” she muttered, bouncing the spoon in her fingers, having yet to use it for anything useful.
“Don’t hold your hand?”
“Don’t tell me what I’m feeling based on what my extremities are doing!”
“Fine. How about I tell you this instead: I wanted to drag you into that apartment, tear off every scrap of black lace, and make sure that you could never forget me. That’s the truth.” It was still the truth, but not one he was going to admit. He still wanted her in a way that defied logic, in a way he still had to fight his way through even when she was quarreling with him. “But because I couldn’t have what I wanted—which was you, in case you’re not paying good enough attention—I tried to forget it. To forget you. But I never didn’t want you, Grace. You didn’t read me wrong.”
The spoon she bounced on her finger slipped and clattered off the table and onto the floor. She didn’t reach for it; instead, she finally looked him in the eyes again, the kind of measuring look that at least said he had her complete attention. She was trying to decide what she thought.
“You were off-limits. I wasn’t kidding when I said that your home and family were my safe place.” She had to believe him. These confessions weren’t easy, and if they were for nothing? “Or how much you all meant to me. Nick is my best friend, I love your family like my own. More than my own. They never measured up when they were around. It wasn’t a rejection, I just didn’t know how to do it right. You weren’t the only one who was young and stupid. I may be older, but I’m definitely not the smarter of the two of us.”
His heart beat so hard his lungs felt battered.
“There was a girl at the apartment with you. I only realized it as I was running off and I heard her call out to you.”
“That girl?” He stopped, trying to recall who it was. Yes, there had been a girl... “You’re going to call me a pig, but I actually can’t remember her name. I sent her home right after you left.” He let go of her hand and retrieved his own spoon. Once he’d got some dessert on it, he held the spoon to her lips to distract her.
Her lips parted and she leaned forward, taking his spoon into her mouth, her warm brown eyes never leaving his. He could feel the slow seductive movement of her tongue across the bowl of the spoon before he slid it back through her closed lips. Good God, he was getting too wrapped up in the idea that this was a date. His heart sped up for an entirely different reason.
“She wasn’t the girl I wanted that night.” His voice went hoarse and he had to clear his throat to add, “So I sent her away, and spent a long, miserable night, staring at the ceiling and waiting for Nick to get back from his date.”
Here beside her, the goose bumps racing down her arms were impossible to miss. He ran the back of one knuckle down her arm, then shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her, as much to warm her as to help his own willpower—hide that soft golden skin beckoning him. And maybe break the sudden heavy, sensual atmosphere that had descended on them. It had to go if he wanted to hold on to any scrap of his sanity.
No more feeding her or touching her. He needed to get the atmosphere back to a more playful, jovial mood. He took a bite for himself, an excuse to make himself stop gazing into her eyes. “Him getting back? Made things worse because your brother always seems to pick up screamers.”
“Oh, God, I don’t need those details,” she said, laughing a little as she pulled the jacket around her and snuggled in, then focused back on him, latching onto what he’d said. “I didn’t misread you. You wanted me?”
“I’m an idiot, but I’m not that big an idiot. Of course I did. You’re...” He stopped again. “You’re great.” Great. Not perfect, he wouldn’t say perfect. His heart felt too big for him in that moment. Enlarged. Sluggish. Sore. It all felt too big for him.
If he’d taken her up on it that night, maybe he’d be able to ignore that want now, but that wasn’t Grace’s style. Maybe she didn’t even want him anymore the way he wanted her.
She shifted in her seat, turning more toward him. Open, inviting. Those walls were coming down. That had to be good. It was almost too much to hope that they could return to being friends.
“I spent the whole night thinking of what I wished I could have done differently.” She whispered her own confession.
“Just one night?” he asked, thankful for the opening to try and get things back on less shaky ground. “I spent considerably more time than that.”
“No. Not just one night. But, well, my rewind fantasies of that night were not very, you know, good. In a sexy way. They were mostly about me dragging that girl out by the hair and keying your car.”
That was easier to smile at. Like she’d ever do either of those things. “If you’d keyed that car I would’ve never noticed,” he said, taking another bite of the dessert. “I still have it, though.”
“You do not.” The waiter replaced her dropped spoon, and Grace reached for it and helped herself to a bite this time.
“Yes, I do. It’s at a shop that restores old cars now. They’re gutting and rebuilding it. So, if you decide to key it in the future, I will notice and be very sad. So let’s keep talking about how sad it is that we’re both so hot and can’t have one another.”
“I never said I was hot.”
“No, that was me. I implied it. I thought you’d be better at reading between the lines than that. Or we could talk about why your—what did you call them, rewind fantasies? Why weren’t they satisfying? I’m told that fantasy me is a stallion.”
She laughed then, so brightly that he instantly felt better. Like the whole of their history was being wiped clean. They could be friends, continue on in one another’s lives, hang out with Nick and do whatever it was that people did when they hung out in groups. Go the movies without formal wear. Something.
“Well, that was the other thing.” She sobered, shaking her head as her cheeks began to turn pink. “I wasn’t... See, I had this idea that you would’ve been...my first time. So I didn’t just make a stupid and unaccountably brave move for me, but for my experience level.”
His head snapped back as her words settled and coldness washed over him.
“You were...?” He must have heard that wrong. “You were a virgin? You were coming to me because you were a virgin?”
