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She slaps my chest, then presses her palm to her forehead. “Yes. That.”
My lips quirk at the chipped black fingernail polish topping her fingertips, and maybe I’d take offense to her comment if I wasn’t so pathetically enamored with her.
She’s breathtaking, with her cheeks flushed from both alcohol and dancing, and the hair at the base of her neck curling chaotically.
“Would you rather I speak with the eloquence of a heathen?”
A flicker of annoyance pinches her face when the woman returns and places the shots on the table. “No, but I liked you better when you didn’t act like some snooty corporate robot.”
She’s keeping me at arm’s length, and I force myself to endure the stab of yearning that splinters through me when all I really want is to pull her close and breathe her in.
“Ah, poor and pathetic, then?” I pluck the tab out of her hand and give the woman my card, wishing I didn’t care what Penelope thinks of me, but I care a whole fucking lot.
“No. I just meant I can handle myself,” she retorts. “I don’t need you paying for me.”
I arch a brow when she slides one of the glasses toward me with her pointer finger, and we drain them without breaking eye contact.
“Does it not matter that I finally have the means to take care of you properly? That maybe I want to take care of you?” She averts her gaze when my arm brushes hers, but I can’t resist provoking her. “Or did you forget to add that to your list of things you find so awful about me?”
“You’re not awful,” she mutters nearly inaudibly, keeping her eyes trained on anything but me. “I shouldn’t have said those things.”
She feels miles away, lost in the same sea of complications where we’ve anchored our fears and doubts, except neither of us is willing to haul them to the surface.
“I could give you this whole fucking island if you wanted it, Pen. I’d find a way.”
“That’s not—” Taking a breath, she says more firmly, “That’s not the point.”
“Then what is it?”
She tortures me for another beat before turning fully. “Do you remember when Mrs. Haldé’s husband passed away, and we spent all those weeks looking after her and those dogs she loved so much?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a scar on my ass cheek from where that bastard, Fluffy, bit me.”
She cracks the barest hint of a smile.
There she is.
“In his defense, you did sit on him.”
The memories emerge swiftly, easy to find and even easier to bask in.
Mrs. Haldé was one of many locals Penelope introduced me to that summer, and she adored us. There was never a shortage of baked goods or home-cooked meals whenever we visited, and when we listened to stories of her and her late husband adventuring through life at our age, I knew that’s what Pen and I had to look forward to.
“I remember how compassionate you were. The way you held her while she grieved that afternoon, despite everything you were going through, despite knowing what would happen if you stayed, you still helped her.”
I pick at a speck on the table, unable to meet her gaze.
We were an hour past my curfew that day, making sure she and her dogs were taken care of before heading back home. And it felt good to comfort another broken human, regardless of the punishment that was waiting for me.
“But now you’re acting just like him—trying to buy my devotion with lavish gifts and creating rules for me to follow. And I’m thankful for your generosity, Logan, I am, but my trust can’t be forced.”
I scowl, and she scowls back, just as fucking stubborn, and we’re right back at square one.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she says, stepping away from the table.
“Wait.” I take her hand, slowly reeling her back to me, and the fact that she allows me to do so culls a glimmer of hope that she’s not as far from me as I feared.
“Your habit of avoiding me is painfully predictable, sunshine. But like it or not, you’re stuck with me tonight.” I gently raise her knuckles to my lips, watching her freeze like a deer in headlights. “So why don’t we try to find some common ground?”
