“That’s where you’re wrong, baby.”
“Baby?” I repeated and shook my head. I needed to burst out of this weird little cozy bubble we were in, or else reality would be a bitch to face. “You don’t have to do this.”
“This?”
“Flirt. Charm. I’m good with us just working together. And I promise I won’t put any more glitter in your paint, no matter how right I was about it, or make suggestions about your…” Iswallowed. “Place.” I lifted my free hand and pointed outside towards his home. Because at the end of the day, it might have been where I had the best time of my life, but that was in the past.
“Why?” he asked. I raised a brow. Was he really going to make me say it?
“You know why.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You might have said those things in the moment, but they had to come from somewhere. And honestly, even if they didn’t… nothing’s changed. The reasons you told me you had for staying away are still viable, real reasons.”
“Candy—“
“Our age difference hasn’t changed, Onyx.” When I pulled my hand from his, an ache grew inside my chest as it melted and traveled through every part of my body. “And the day doesn’t suddenly have an extra twelve hours in it.” The harsh reality of life sucked. I stepped back.
And took another step, and another. But Onyx had this determined look on his face, one that made my stupid sappy heart start to hope for more. His steps matched my own, and he didn’t stop until the back of my thighs bumped into a table.
“Onyx.”
“That night,”—he didn’t have to explain for me to know when he was talking about—“up until that stupid moment I tried to save you from that asshole, was great. Something out of a goddamn romantic movie,” he rasped, and I blinked.
“Save me?—”
“I’m not like some jealous asshole out there, snowflake, but I sure as fuck am territorial.”
“Territorial,” I whispered, trying to process and make sense of what he was saying.
“What’s mine is mine.” I blinked. Once, twice, then a third time. He sounded like one of the alpha heroes in a romance novel.
“I’m not yours,” I whispered, and to my surprise, something in his face softened.
“You are. You have been since that night.”
“That makes no sense, Onyx! It’s not like that night was the first time we met!” I argued. He might have flinched, but it was the resolve in his eyes that made me brace. “Did you forget I was born and raised in Moonlit, just like you were? I went to school with your sisters.”
“I know that, baby.” He swallowed. “And this is going to make me sound like a dick, beautiful, but when you were younger, I didn’t see you. Not like that. I always thought you were pretty and sweet, but that was it, Candace.” For some reason, I liked how he called me snowflake a little more than my full name. “You were my kid sisters’ friend. I was a lot older, and that wouldn’t have been?—“
“I get that.” I rolled my eyes. “I do.”
“That night, though? I fucked up. Put my foot in my mouth and regretted it the moment the words slipped out. It wasn’t the way I should have handled the situation, but honestly?” He opened and shut his mouth before his face changed. There was determination in his gaze. “I figured it was for the best.”
“You thought it would be better that I thought you were some chauvinistic jerk?”
“No, but yeah.” He swallowed. “Because as much as I liked you and I had a great time talking to you, I knew myself and where my life was in that moment. I’d just opened up a business, and you would have been a living, walking, breathing distraction.”
“Oh god!” I shook my head. “If that’s not the newit’s not you, it’s meline.”
“It’s not a line, Candy Kane. You tempted me, just like you tempt me right this very moment.”
“Tempted? By me? Dressed like this?” I scoffed and snorted, glancing down at my gray Moonlit Pines library shirt and leggings that were speckled in pink and red paint. And I knew my hair was a wild curly mess I’d thrown up atop of my head. “Please, there is no?—“
I didn’t finish my sentence.
I couldn’t.
