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“How dare you accuse me of leading you on?” she asked. “How dare you when you… you…” she started shaking at some point. “You’ve got no right…”
He stared at her. “I’ve got no right? No right to what? No right to feel this for you? No right telling you about it? No right-”
“Don’t you dare put words in my mouth, Jaxon Lawson.”
“You put some in there, then. You’re making no sense.”
“I have no fucking idea what I’m doing!” she said. The words echoed around the place and he looked surprised. “I don’t. I am inept and ill-equipped to handle a man like you, apparently. Because I thought you were taking me along, pulling me out to sea with you, and apparently, it was I who was doing the pulling?”
“Teagan you must have-”
“I must havenothing,” she hissed. “You, Jaxon. You held all the cards, all the balls, all the whatever analogy or clichéd metaphor you want to choose to describe this fucking situation. You’re the one who has had all the women and all the experience.”
“Oh, you’re shaming me for having a past now?”
“Ineverwould,” she replied. “Let me finish.”
He pursed his lips and crossed his arms. Waiting.
“I didn’t know where I stood with you. I didn’t know if I was keeping you from what you wanted to be doing. I was the one who dragged you into this mess and maybe you were acting out of an actual need for me, or maybe it was just…needin general.”
“Are you accusing me of being such a hound that I’d attempt to coax you into bed only to dump you later? For a lark? I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I’m sorry, are youwithany of your other girlfriends?” She looked around the room. “Where are they?”
“Teagan…” he stopped talking, shaking his head. “I don’t know what to say except you must think the very worst of me.”
“No, I don’t,” she insisted, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. “I don’t. I think the best of you. I think you’re a good man, you took the shit that fate gave you and spun gold out of it. I wish I could be half as good at that as you. I wish I could be someone you’d want to be with. Someone who doesn’t make stupid mistakes and has to beg and lie and cheat my way into someone’s good graces.”
“Youaresomeone I want to be with,” he countered.
“Bullshit,” she spat.
“Not bullshit. I’m not blowing sunshine up your ass here, Teagan. I want you. Ilikeyou. I like that you are pigheaded and absolutely unable to see the forest for the trees. I like that I have to fight you to do the dishes. I like that you cannot keep a houseplant alive. Not a single one even though you work at a plant shop.”
“The snake plant’s alive,” she sniffed, nodding towards the pot by the door.
“I thought that was fake until this moment,” he admitted. “Okay, so you kill every plant except the ones that I think are fake, and I adore that.”
“You never told me you liked me.”
“Teagan! Love, I sucked on your earlobe.”
“I thought that was just a move.”
“I don’t have moves.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, sure you don’t.”
“I don’t. None that work, if you couldn’t tell how crazy I am about you.”
“I wasn’t trying to jerk you around, Jaxon…” she took a deep breath and stood up, cupping her hands over her mouth to try to calm down. “I wasn’t, I promise. I don’t even know how to do that. God, it makes me sick to think that you-”
“Teags,” he reached out, brushing his fingers over her arm. “Teags.”
“I didn’t, Jaxon, I didn’t. I’ve always looked up to you. Even when I used to fancy you in high school and you were an ass to me, I still looked up to you.”
“I was an ass because I liked you, and I didn’t know how to tell you.”
