“You, a nice guy?” I bark out a humorless laugh.
“I’m notthatbad.” Something in his expression gives me pause, the smile falling from my lips in an instant.
“Who are you trying to convince, you or me?”
“Maybe both.” He shrugs.
“And why do you care what I think?”
“Who says I do?” His cocky smirk returns with a vengeance.
“You’re an asshole.”
“And you are way too easy to rile,” he counters.
“I am not easily riled. I just don’t like you.”
“Who are you trying to convince, me or you?” He throws my words back at me.
“Ha. Ha,” I deadpan.
“You know, Mais, I think you’ll find I make a much better friend than I do an enemy.”
“I have no interest in being your friend.”
“And why is that?”
“You know why.”
“Do I?”
“Are you really going to play stupid?” I look both ways before crossing another street.
“I’m not playing anything. I’m genuinely curious why you hate me so much.”
“If you don’t already know, I’m certainly not going to explain it to you.”
“It has to do with what happened a couple of years ago. We hooked up and then what... I hurt your feelings because I didn’t want more?”
“Hurt my feelings?” A strangled noise scrapes its way up my throat. “You humiliated me.” I stop abruptly, spinning on my heel to face him. “You made me feel like nothing more than a common whore in front of your friends, in front of even more strangers.”
He walks a couple of more steps before realizing I’ve stopped, at which point he pivots back toward me, quickly closing the distance between us.
“I didn’t mean to humiliate you, but you were rather insistent, and I didn’t know how else to get rid of you.”
“Get rid of me!?” I throw my hands up. “You could have just told me that you... I don’t know... weren’t interested in anything beyond sex. You didn’t have to make me look like a crazy person in front of a large group of people.”
“You’re right.”
“I know I’m right. I never pressured you. I never asked anything of you. We slept together a couple of times. I really liked you. I thought you liked me. So, in my mind, talking to you at a party was a completely acceptable thing to do, and yet, instead of telling me how you were feeling like aman, you hid behind your friends and made fun of me like aboy.”
I force my mouth closed before I can say anything else. I’ve already said way more than I ever intended.
“You’re right,” he repeats a second time.
“I know!” I also repeat.
“And I’m sorry.” The genuineness of his words catches me off guard.
