“You’re fine. It’s not like I’m known for my tenderhearted disposition.”
“Could have fooled me,” I say, attempting a lighthearted tone.
“You should ask Daisy about the first time we met,” she says with a sniffle. “I’m pretty sure she went home and cried about it.”
“That makes two of us, then,” I tell her.
“Yeah. Guess I left you with a horrible first impression and plenty of regrets, too.”
“Oh, I have plenty of regrets about the night we met,” I reply too quickly. “But not for the reasons you’d think.”
She crosses her arms over her middle and looks away. “If you’reanything like your sister, I can understand why it bothered you that my divorce wasn’t final yet. You seem like a pretty upright bunch.”
“We try, anyway,” I murmur after I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Then I’m sorry, too. I didn’t intend to mislead you. I’d honestly stopped thinking of myself as married a long time ago, but I should have been more transparent from the beginning.”
Guilt gnaws at my stomach again. “I appreciate the apology, but I can’t let you take all the blame. I probably shouldn’t have gone up to your room in the first place when we barely knew one another, even if we had sort of trauma bonded before the end of the night.”
“In hindsight, I can’t imagine you being a one-night-stand kind of guy. I guess I shouldn’t have invited you in,” she pauses to smirk before she continues, “or suggested you take off your clothes.”
I stifle a laugh as my insides get all warm at the memory. “I’m pretty sure that was a direct order.”
“I was providing life-saving medical care,” she retorts, swatting my arm playfully.
“By changing into your skimpiest pajamas and rubbing me down?” I ask with a raised brow.
“Those werenotmy skimpiest pajamas. And I was applying hydrocortisone cream, Benadryl Boy. It wasn’t supposed to be sexy.”
I grunt, purposefully brushing over the first half of her reply. “Neither was the part when you stabbed me with the EpiPen, but I wasn’t lying when I said I’d risk anaphylaxis to have your hands on me like that again.”
I don’t mean to say it aloud, but there it is. I watch as her lips part in surprise and her eyelashes flutter, but it only takes a second for her to regain her composure.
“Oh, so now you like the idea of me getting down on my knees for you?” she demands, crossing her arms over her chest this time and regarding me skeptically.
I cringe and try my best to ignore the way she makes my stomach dip. “I’m acting like a jerk again, aren’t I?”
“I guess that depends on your next move.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
rowan
“Can we start over?”
Claire glares at me again. “Start over?”
I nod and shove my resentment aside. “Hi, Claire. I didn’t expect to see you here tonight, but I’m actually very glad I ran into you.”
“Oh, are you?”
“Yes. I’ve been hoping I’d get the chance to tell you how sorry I am about the way we left things before,” I continue, because talking to her this way feels so much more natural than being as bitter as I was a minute ago. “And I wanted you to know that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the night we met.”
She twists her lips to the side, as if she’s considering whether she wants to trust me. “Maybe a small part of me has been looking forward to seeing you again, too,” she admits shyly, and I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face.
“It’s actually pretty funny when you think about it, meeting again like this,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” she agrees, smiling back at me and making my heart speed up.
