She frowned. Well, no, but it had hurt.
But it didn’t kill you.She could have actually died earlier today. This had been bearable.
She chewed her lower lip, half-hating the context her analytical brain automatically put everything into. This wasn’t the end of the world. She was a grown-ass woman. And she would deal with his rejection. She couldn’t ignore Gabe forever.
She rolled over to look at the vexing man and cleared her throat. He glanced up from fiddling with his phone. Why he was bothering, she wasn’t sure. They were completely cut off out here. She rose up on her elbow and said the first thing that came to her mind. “What’s your favorite color?”
It was the type of question she might have asked as Anne, and for a second, she wondered if he knew. But his lips only quirked up. “Green. You?”
“Pink.”
“Sounds right.”
“Does it?”
“Yup.” He dragged his leg up and rested his elbow on it. “You okay?”
She fought her blush. “Yes. Sorry for... being a pain. Again.”
“At some point you should stop apologizing for having emotions and expressing them.” He smiled, which took the sting out of what could have been interpreted as a rebuke. “You’re a human. You can be human.”
“I’m sorry I hit on you. I do feel foolish. I am quite aware now that you don’t want me like that. It’ll never happen again.”
An odd look crossed his face. “I didn’t say I don’t want you like that. You overheard me on the phone, didn’t you?”
“I did, but...” But she’d gotten used to doubting herself. Retreating. That turtle shell.
He looked away, into the fire. “You’re hot. That cherry swimsuit of yours is a little absurd.”
No one had ever called her hot before. Well, her girlfriends, yes. But not a man, at least not to her face.
All she could think to say was, “I have one with apples all over it too.”
His groan was a half-laugh. “That’s not helping.”
“Sorry.” She wanted to giggle, which was unusual. She wasn’t given to giggling. This giddiness was foreign to her, though she imagined it was normal for most twenty-something women.
His smile faded. “I don’t really do relationships, Eve. I’m also not into hurting women, though.”
She tried to parse that. “You only have physical relationships.”
“Yeah. And the dynamics between you and me and all of our overlapping connections—that would make any kind of physical relationship impossible.” He gave a short laugh. “And that’s not even factoring in the age difference.”
“You’re not that much older than me.” She’d never felt young, not really. She’d had to grow up fast in a household that was, by turns, viciously cold and dramatically loud, punctuated with tragedy and upheaval.
“A dozen years.” He made a face. “I was in middle school when you were born. Hell, Irememberwhen you were born.”
“Let’s not think about that,” she suggested. The last thing she wanted to do was for him to think of her as anything but a fully-grown, consenting woman.
“I haven’t, lately. It barely occurs to me anymore. I feel like we’re equals.”
She rose up on her elbows. “That’s good.”
“No, it’s not.”
She bit her lip, trying to think. He’d admitted that he wanted her. Probably not even a tenth as much as she wanted him, but did it matter? “If the age thing isn’t bothering you, and if we don’t let the family stuff get between us, I don’t see why we can’t have a purely physical relationship,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think that’s really your style, is it?”
