But she’s doing it. That smile makes me feel warm and gooey inside, like she’s put all of the pieces of me together and now I’m a fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie whose entire purpose is to make the world a better place.
“I liked you in high school.” The words slip out of my mouth before I can stop them. She’s scrambled my brains. And my tongue. “And you were always too good for me, but I still liked you, so I was an asshole because it was easier to push you away than to face the fact that you would forever be better than me and never give me a chance. So it’s easy to just be an asshole to you. It’s habit. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
Her lips part and her hand stills. “Are you—” She stops herself.
Licks her lips.
Makes my cock half-hard at the sight of her pink tongue.
Shakes her head.
And starts again. “Are you making fun of me?” she whispers.
“How would that be making fun of you?”
“Because we arenothingalike, and there’szeroreason for someone like you to like someone like me.”
“I know,” I rasp out.
“This isn’t funny.”
My face is getting hot.
So are my balls. “It’s really not.”
“You made me feel like I was unattractive and annoying and wrong for just existing. Youstill do.”
“I didn’t mean—I didn’t know. That’s not what I—”
“And all the while, you were always havingso much fun. So much fun. Whereas I—do you have any idea how hard it is to exist in a world where you want to have fun but it’sbadorforbiddenordangerousorsomething for people who don’t have a future? When you have to be perfect even when you know it’s an impossible standard, but you know you have to keep trying because maybe,just maybe, one day you’ll be the exception to thenobody’s perfectrule? And then to be treated like dirt by the very people you’re so very, very jealous of because they don’t have to live up to that? Not evenclose.”
Four kittens yowl in distress.
One more darts into the shower.
“I—I can imagine,” I force out.Stop talking, Theo. Stop. Fucking. Talking. Now.
I’m usually good in these situations. I’m the guy the rest of the construction crew comes to when they need advice, because they know I’m fun, but they also know I’ve learned a lot of lessons about life and am happy to share. The Sullivan triplets and I goof off together a lot, but when one of them’s down and his brothers aren’t around, he shows up at my door for a beer and a pep talk.
I’m not the fuckup I was in high school. I took all of those lessons and I turned them around and I put them out into the world to help other people never, ever feel like the fuckup I believed myself to be for most of my life.
But here I am, both feeling like a fuckup myself and feeling like I’m hurting Laney too.
“I sincerely doubt you have any idea how I’ve ever felt,” she says stiffly. “Thank you for the kitten relief. I won’t tell anyone. They’re clearly happy here, and that’s what matters.” She rises, causing Miss Doodles to leap away in disgust while Laney awkwardly disentangles herself from the kittens who are clawing her clothes in various places and trying to climb on her to keep her there as their personal jungle gym. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go find some food. I’ll be back before we have to leave for dinner. Don’t go without me.”
“Laney—”
“If I’m going to help Emma have the wedding of her dreams, I need a break right now.”
She doesn’t tell me to stay put.
Doesn’t offer any advice to keep the kittens a secret in the resort.
Doesn’t say when she’ll be back or where she’s going.
She just slips quietly out the door, making sure Jellybean doesn’t follow her.
Miss Doodles looks at me.
