Page 136 of Hard Pass

“You know I tried to approach you before that, right?” he says.

My head snaps up. “What?”

“At the bar. You were leaning against it, talking to your friend.” He smiles. “Yeah, I saw you.”

It shouldn’t matter, but it does. “You didn’t come over.”

“I was heading your way,” he continues, a faint shake of his head like he still doesn’t quite believe it. “And then you were gone.”

I frown. “Gone?”

“Restroom? Needed some air? I don’t know, but you were gone, and I figured I’d missed my shot.” He smiles. “And the next time I saw you, you were walking straight up to me, telling me you wanted me.”

“Oh my God. It did not go like that . . . exactly.” I blush.

He huffs out a quiet laugh. “How I remember it, it did.” He smiles and murmurs more to himself than to me, “Trouble.”

“Maybe, it was closer to your version than to mine, but I’ll never admit that.” I laugh.

He takes a sip of his wine and looks at me over the rim. “I knew you weren’t asleep.”

I scrunch my nose up and make a noncommittal noise. Need more wine STAT.

“I was tired,” I lie.

“Your pulse was racing. I could see it in your neck,” he says. “Your breathing was off. Your eyes fluttered like a little kid pretending.”

I groan. “Please stop talking.”

He chuckles, but it fades gently. “Why? You changed your mind,” he says. “It was your right to and as much as I wanted you, I wasn’t going to push you into something you weren’t sure about.” He reaches across the table and links his fingers with mine. “So I let it go.”

“And then probably went right back out to the bar and found someone else to have fun with.”

He shrugs without shame. “I was twenty, single, buzzed, and because of you, horny.”

“That’s a yes, then.” I laugh because I’d expect nothing less of any other guy in that situation. No hard feelings at all.

“That is a yes,” he says but then stares down at his wine for a beat before looking back up to meet my eyes. “But I won’t lie and say I didn’t hope to maybe see you again at the pool or bar.”

“Because your ego was bruised?” I tease. “I mean that had to have been hard having one, lone female be immune to your charms.”

“Completely brutal.” His smile is a slow crawl over his lips that heats up parts of me. “And then you show up five years later to complicate my career and bruise my ego again by acting like that night in Cabo never happened.”

“Because it didn’t happen.” I chuckle. “Not really.”

“Well . . .” He shrugs. “I didn’t forget.”

I swallow. His words hit me in a way I never expected they could, and mixed with our current situation and circumstances, mean more than he’ll ever know.

“And now we’re here,” he says.

“In a restaurant with people peeking in through the windows.”

“We are.” He nods. “Funny how life works sometimes. Besides, we gave them a few days to stir up all the drama they can create, and then we made the decision to go out and let them see we don’t care what they say.”

“We made the decision?”

His mouth twitches. “Last I recall, you did walk in here on your own volition.”