That time he didn’t fix his mistake. He simply let it stand, although he did work his jaw like his tongue was numb.
She finally found her voice. “Why are you telling me all this, Romeo?”
He stared hard at her. She felt his eyes boring into hers as if he was trying to see inside her head. Then, he shrugged and looked away, which meant she had the opportunity to release a covert breath of relief.
To be the object of Romeo’s stark attention was a heady and disquieting experience.
“I guess because I respect you and admire you, and I hate that I hurt your feelings earlier.” He grimaced. “I guess because you said you wanted to be my friend, but I thought you should know the kind of man you wanted a friendship with.”
For a long time she was quiet, weighing her words carefully in her mind. Then, finally, “You know, I’ve heard it said we should never judge people by their pasts, especially if they don’t live there anymore. You say you were seventeen when all this happened?”
He nodded, looking like he was waiting for her to condemn him despite her words.
“And how old are you now?” she asked.
“Thirty-four.”
“So, for a few months during your seventeenth year of life you did some bad stuff. And that’s supposed to count for more than what you’ve done for the last seventeenyears?”
He cocked his head, considering the possibility.
She didn’t know if it was the whiskey keeping his synapses from firing, or if he really was being that hard on himself.
“Let me answer that for you since you seem to be having trouble. No.” She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t count for more. You were young, dumb, a product of your environment, and making choices that didn’t even feel like choices at the time. You’re not that kid anymore, Romeo. And the man you are…the man you’ve become issomeone I would like to have as a friend. Just as soon as you pull your head out of your ass and stop thinking I’m only after your hot bod.”
That he ever thought otherwise broke her heart and had all her previous ire draining out of her like she was a human sieve. Her headache went with it.
Tentatively, she smoothed the tuft of hair at his temple. Then she gently tamed his goatee, loving the coarse feel of his facial hair against the sensitive pads of her fingers. He sat perfectly still, watching her with those melting, dark eyes.
A trill of attraction vibrated low in her stomach, but she ignored it. “And FYI,” she added, “shitfaced isn’t a good look on you. It’s not a good look on anyone, actually. But I swear, you look like a before picture.”
That seemed to bring him up short. “Fuck,” he hissed. “I shouldn’t have…your mom…she was a… I should’ve—” He realized he was stumbling over himself and finished with, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I mean, my lizard brain still goes into fight, flight, or freeze mode whenever I’m around someone who’s had too much. But my rational brain knows noteveryonewho gets drunk does it on the daily, and simply because someone overindulges around me, that doesn’t mean something bad is bound to happen.”
“Is that why you didn’t ask Doc to join you for a drink? Because alcohol is such a sore subject?”
“More like I realized I wanted to use it as a drug to make myself feel better after our talk,” she admitted with a grimace. “And given my family history, that’s a slippery slope.Tooslippery. I don’t want to come anywhere near it.”
Silence descended on the porch then. The only sounds were the call of insects and the distanceshushof the waves lapping at the beach.
She’d revealed too much. A sickly panic began to set in, so she quipped, “Anyway, all that to say I forgive you for stumbling up here with bacon for brains.”
She could tell he didn’t want to, but he let her change the subject. “Bacon for brains, huh?” He shot her an amused glance. “You’re one surprise after another.”
“Yes. I contain multitudes.”
“And so you know, I hardly ever drink this much. I needed some liquid courage to…to tell you—”
“Forget about it.” She waved away his explanation. “All’s well that ends well.” Then a thought occurred. “Hey, whatever happened to the baby?”
He frowned. “What baby?”
“The one your girlfriend was carrying when you were arrested.”
“Oh.” He sighed. “Turns out Gina wasn’t pregnant. She only wanted me to give her the money so she could buy a new phone.”
Mia blinked. “You’re not serious.”
