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From anyone else, that would have sounded arrogant and cocky, totally egotistical. But from him… It just sounded like the joke I knew it was.
I pursed my lips. “Sebastian. It’s been a while.”
“Sebastian. Ouch.” He winced. “Now I know I’m in trouble.”
With a sigh, I turned around and picked up Nicholas Sparks’ latest novel to put back on the table. “How are you?”
“How are you? That’s it? We haven’t seen each other in eight years, and—”
“And that’s it,” I said calmly, setting the book stand on top of the stack. “We haven’t seen each other in eight years.” I peered over my shoulder. “I’m sorry, was I supposed to run into your arms, sobbing about how much I’ve missed you?”
“I see your attitude grew with you.”
“I see your inability to see past the end of your nose grew with you.”
He laughed and stepped further inside the store, looking around. “I should have guessed you’d end up owning this place one day.”
“Co-own,” I corrected him. “With Saylor and Kinsley.”
“Obviously. I can’t imagine you not being attached at the hip with them.”
I made a noise that could have been either agreement or a refusal to respond. Or both. Probably both.
“I like what you’ve all done here,” he said, walking around the front of the store. He came up to me and picked up one of the books I’d just set down, a new historical by a big-name author I’d never read. “Not really my thing.” He set it back down, crooked.
I refrained from sighing again as I straightened it, then turned back to go behind the register. “Why are you here, Sebastian?”
He dropped the unbothered act and looked at me, his lips now curled slightly downward instead of upward. “I wanted to see you, Holl.”
“Holley.”
“What?”
“My name. It’s Holley.” I met his gaze. “Use it.”
“Wow.” He shook his head. “I know we didn’t leave things on the best of terms, but—”
“But what?” I raised an eyebrow. “You thought that after eight years of us not even sharing a ‘hello’ you could walk in here and it would be like I didn’t walk in on you playing tonsil tennis with my deadly enemy?”
He looked at me for a moment. “Yeah. I guess I did.”
“Well, then you didn’t know me that well after all.” I gathered the papers that had come loose from the order book and straightened them out by tapping them against the table, then adjusted my glasses.
“I thought you might have grown up a little.”
I glared at him. “Then you didn’t know me that well after all,” I repeated through gritted teeth. “You can leave now.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Come on, Holl—ey,” he added. “I’m going to be in town for long time. We were eighteen, we can leave it behind us now, can’t we?”
“I haven’t spoken to Iris since that night, and she lives here in town. I think I can manage not talking to you for a few months until you leave again to be a big superstar.” I gave him a pointed look that I hoped portrayed my disdain accurately enough.
Accurately enough that he would leave.
A girl could hope.
But if he was still the same Sebastian I knew—and I feared he was—that wasn’t going to happen.
Sebastian sighed and approached the counter, gripping the edge of the molded mahogany.
Yep.
I was right.
Sometimes, I hated being right.
“Holley, listen to me. That was years ago. I’m sorry I hurt you, but—”
“Okay, if you’re going to apologize for hurting someone, you don’t follow it up with the word ‘but.’” I folded my arms across my chest. “There is no ‘but’ that could ever follow that sentence, because the second you say that I know you’re about to do one of two things. Say you didn’t mean to, which negates your apology entirely, or you’re about to tell me why it’s my fault, therefore absolving you of all responsibility just to make yourself feel better because you know you did a shitty thing.”
He said nothing.
“So no, you’re not sorry you hurt me. Try again.”
“I am sorry I hurt you.” The shadow that passed over his eyes was hard to deny. “You were my best friend, Holley. Hurting you wasn’t anything I ever wanted to do.”
I made another grunt-like noise. “Well, you did. And it’s done. We’ve moved on and grown up.”
“Clearly not, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He leaned forward a little. “What do you want me to do? Take out a front-page ad telling you how sorry I am?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Billboard in Times Square?”
“Stop—you can do that?” My eyebrows shot up, before I shook my head and threw away that thought. “Stop it,” I said, going back to my original train of thought. “It’s fine. Stuff happens and people change. We changed, Sebastian, and that’s it. Just because we were friends then doesn’t mean we need to be now.”
