“I know,” I said. “I know you’re not him. But it’s hard to shake off the shit someone else drilled into you.”
He tilted his head. “So you’ve been keeping me at arm’s length because I smile too much?”
I rolled my eyes. “You flirt too much.”
“That’s just my face,” he deadpanned.
I couldn’t help it. A reluctant snort escaped me. He grinned at that. Not big. Just a small, crooked smile. One that twisted something in my chest.
God, he was trouble. Handsome, charming, persistent trouble. But right now, he wasn’t playing around. He was real. Solid.
And the way his energy wrapped around mine made something ancient in me stir.
And heck, he was gorgeous. His wolf practically hummed with attention, tuned to mine. Like he could feel something too. Something real.
“You really don’t like me, huh?” he asked, his voice quieter now, uncertain.
“I don’t know what I feel,” I admitted. “But I don’t hate you. I just—get confused when I’m around you.”
His brows lifted slightly, a flicker of hope in his expression. “So you do think about me?”
I groaned and turned toward the truck. “This is a mistake.”
He followed, voice lighter. “You’re a walking contradiction, Grumpy Bear. You storm in here like someone pissed in your honey, then act like I ran over your favorite plant when I try to talk to you.”
“Don’t call me that,” I muttered, but my lips twitched.
“Too late. Grumpy Bear fits,” James said.
I reached the truck and leaned against the door, exhaling hard. The tension in my chest still hadn’t gone away, but it’d shifted. Changed into something murkier, more complicated.
James stood beside me, hands still tucked in his jacket, eyes on me like he was seeing something no one else had before.
“You’re not as scary as you pretend to be,” he said.
“I’m not pretending.”
“You are,” he said simply. “You’re just guarding that big soft heart of yours with fangs and claws.”
I didn’t say anything. Mostly because he wasn’t wrong.
At the truck, I hesitated. Part of me wanted to bolt, go back to the bakery and bury myself in work until I forgot this conversation ever happened.
But the other part, the part that hadn’t stopped thinking about his wonderful laugh, or the way he smelled like cinnamon and pine and home, stayed rooted to the spot.
“Thanks for the phone,” I said quietly.
James tilted his head, expression soft now. “You ever gonna stop running from me?”
I exhaled. “Maybe. But not today.”
His smile faded into something gentler. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow, Grumpy Bear.”
He winked.
I watched him walk away, his confident stride full of heat and swagger, like he didn’t even know the mess he was leaving me in.
My bear huffed inside me, not in anger. Something closer to longing. Not today, but maybe soon. And maybe that scared me more than anything.
