“I like to like myself, and it turns out I don’t like myself if I’m an asshole.”
She snorts softly.
“I stole my brother’s girlfriend and took her to prom. Then I slept with her and immediately dumped her too.”
Her arms go impossibly tighter around me. “Would you do it again?”
“No.”I blow out a breath. “He hasn’t been back to Tickled Pink since he left for college.”
“Is he ... nice?”
“Yeah. Decent guy. Eloped a couple years back. Mom talks about his kids. I don’t get pictures.”
“He’s still mad?”
“Doesn’t come back to town.Ever.Can’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to be around me either. And I gave my little sister’s American Girl doll a swirly. She saved foryearsfor it, and I ruined it because I was a shit.”
I mentioned she’s strong, right? She’s now gripping me like she can squeeze the guilt and the shame and the past right out of me. “Dylan, you don’t have to try to make me feel better by beingthe worse guy. You make me feel better by letting me be me. You’re one of the good guys. You really are.”
I fall silent, mostly because I need all my focus to keep myself from kissing her senseless.
Part of me wants to be mad that she doesn’t care what I did wrong.
But the other part of me is stuck on the fact that, for the first time in my life, I’ve met someone who makes me honestly feel like Icanlet go of my own past. That Icanexpel my demons and not worry that they’ll come back.
She believes in me.
We’re both people with ugly pasts who are trying to do better, andshe believes in me.
And that’s possibly the biggest turn-on I’ve ever experienced in my life.
“I liked myself once,” she says quietly. “I was doing a good thing. I was doing a really good thing. And thenGigihappened, and now I’m here because I can’t keep funding the good things if I don’t give in to her extortion and play her game until I can find an alternative revenue source, because even when I’m doing good things, I can’t do it without the family money.”
I want to squeezehertight until I can solve all her problems the way I feel like she’s solving mine. “Who cares where the money came from if it’s helping the world? Tell your grandmother you’re a good person and leave.”
“I can’t. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Phoebe did it.”
“But Phoebe isPhoebe, and I’m—”
“Not going to insult yourself right now, because if you do, I’ll throw more chocolate all over the floor.”
I’m teasing, and I expect a laugh or even a sigh and adon’t be cute, Dylan—this is serious, which I probably deserve.
Instead, she hugs me even tighter, lining our bodies up, and I can’t hide the way I’m reacting to the physical contact.
There’s no amount of hoping she’ll think it’s a pipe in my pants that will solve this.
But I don’t let go.
I hug my friends all the time. My mom. Jane and Anya and Shiloh and Ridhi. Willie Wayne and Gibson and even Teague when the grumpy bastard lets me. Hannah, though I need to let that go.
When a friend needs a hug, a friend needs a hug.
But this is different.
This is different, because I can smell the chocolate mingling with the subtle scent of her shampoo, and her forehead is resting against my jaw, and she’s gripping me like she’s never had a hug before and doesn’t know how to let go.
