I glared at him.
“Fine,” he conceded after a beat. “I’ll help if you acknowledge that Bree is inspiring you.”
That was too steep of a price to pay for a little toilet paper. “She’s just a friend.”
It wasn’t true. I didn’t look at Bree and feel friendly feelings. I felt more. It was not, however, something I could put into words.
“I’m not saying anything has to come of this,” Nathan said. “Maybe you should give it a shot, though.”
“Give what a shot?”
He pinned me with a look that told me not to play dumb. “You don’t have to marry her,” he said in his calmest voice. “But there’s no reason not to figure out if you really like her. It could be a chemical thing.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning you two might bang like loose shutters during a tornado for two weeks and then fizzle out. You can still be friends after something like that. It will be fine.”
“And what if we don’t fizzle out?”
“Then maybe you’ll get something more out of the deal.”
I didn’t want to like that idea. My traitorous heart felt otherwise. It threw its arms up as if we were at a Taylor Swift concert.Woo-hoo!
“I’ll take it under advisement,” I said dryly. “I’m not nearly as invested in this as you think I am though.”
He merely shook his head. “You’re smitten.”
“What a stupid word,” I complained.
“You’re still smitten.”
Smitten?Sadly, that was the exact right word.
“Let’s clean up the toilet paper first, then shower,” I said. “If you help, I’ll buy you breakfast before you head home.”
Nathan perked up. “Now you’re speaking my love language.”
“Somehow, I knew you were going to say that.”
17
SEVENTEEN
Brody haunted my dreams. I woke up the morning after the event hot, sweaty, and frustrated.
Who knew he could kiss like that? I certainly hadn’t suspected. That was why I’d gotten so lost in what we were doing despite recognizing that it was a terrible idea. It was easier to blame him than myself. I hadn’t done anything wrong.
The truth was, Brody hadn’t done anything wrong either. He’d waited for me to say no or push him away. Instead, I’d thrown caution to the wind and transformed into a horny teenager. He’d felt so right pressed up against me. There had been no awkward fumbling with the kiss. So often, first kisses were uncomfortable. It took time to get used to someone else’s rhythm. Brody’s rhythm had been my rhythm, however. We were perfectly in sync.
That did nothing to ease whatever was building inside my chest. Or was it my soul? Because—and this was so corny I would never admit it to another person—it did feel as if he was inside my soul. He’d climbed in there, and in a short amount of time. That was the stuff of books, not reality.
I prided myself on not being my mother. She remade herself for whatever man she was currently dating. I’d witnessed it, up close and personal, the entire time I was growing up. If her boyfriend hated green beans, she suddenly hated them. If the next one said his favorite Thanksgiving dish was green bean casserole, she learned how to make a good one from a recipe on the internet and pretended it was tradition in our family.
My father had taken off before I could form a memory of him. I was not inclined to find him. First off, he’d abandoned me. I didn’t reward bad behavior like that. Secondly, though I would never say this out loud, I had zero respect for a man who would choose my mother. She was the reason that entire Pick Me meme had been created. That was her to a tee.
It wasn’t that I’d never dated. I had needs. I dated. I had sex. I let them hang around a week or two—the longest was three months—and then I quietly showed them the door. Since I picked specific men, none of them ever gave me a hard time during the goodbyes. I wasn’t looking for forever. Neither were they.
Brody had somehow gotten in under the security fence I had locked around my heart. I told myself my reaction to him was chemical and nothing more. I was lying to myself, but I kept repeating it anyway.
