“You think I’m mean?” he asked.
“You have said cruel things to me.”
“Such as?”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve obviously been stuck in warring positions for some time, but even if we’re no longer looking at each other the same way, it doesn’t mean we’ve reached a full detente.”
“That means a truce, right? Or something close enough?”
I rolled in my lips to hide a smile. How was he so smart all of a sudden?
Maybe it wasn’t so sudden. Maybe the intelligence plus muscles in one hot package scares you.
“Tell me one of these cruel things I said, Francesca.” His voice was low. A murmur, a plea for understanding.
I was trapped on the bottom step of the staircase. Backing up would look like backing down, yet his closeness was setting off firecrackers in my body.
“You-you called me a name once.”
“What did I say?” He didn’t even deny it. His ready acceptance of whatever slight he’d delivered in the past threw me.
“It doesn’t mat?—”
“What was it?”
I snatched a breath. “Slug Girl.”
The moment ticked over, my heart with it.
“When did this happen?”
I was abruptly aware of how foolish this all sounded. I was a grown woman, close to forty years old, and I was holding onto this animus for no good reason. I needed to leave. Recalibrate. Go back to my list and assess next steps.
I backed up, but my foot caught on the stair. He grabbed for me and saved my fall, but the move brought me closer to him. My chest to his. My lips to his chin. His hand stayed on my arm, holding me safe.
Making me want.
“You were barely a teen,” I said quickly. Desperately. “Thirteen, maybe? It was here, actually. Well, Theo’s backyard. I was in the garden and you came along with Mikey Callahan and some other boy.”
“And I called you ‘Slug Girl’?”
“We were facing off?—”
“Like hockey?”
I shook my head. “I might have started it. You were staring at my chest, and I called you a pervert.”
“Ah.” He smiled, not taking offense at all. “Sounds about right.”
“It was clear you and your friends thought my interests, my research interests, were gross. And after some unimaginative name-calling, you got the final word. I know it’s silly to hold onto that?—”
He shook his head, rubbed my arm. “No, it’s not. We all hold onto shit from our childhood.”
“It was so long ago.” Over twenty years. “It’s absurd to hold a grudge, especially for all these years.”
“Yeah, but it stuck in your head. It’s okay, Doc. If anything, it makes you human.”
Arching an eyebrow, I peered up to meet his gaze head-on. My position on the second-to-last step placed us almost at eye level. No neck pain necessary.
