Mac grinned. “Nice try. No, I genuinely wanted to torture you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Although”—she paused dramatically—“when I was in high school, I definitely thought you were hot.”
“Thank you.”
She chuckled. “But I guess I stayed mad enough over the pranks you pulled and the things you said that the idea of not torturing you seemed a lot like losing. And I knew you could take it, whatever I dished out. You weren’t going to tattle or whine about it. You were going to give it to me right back. I liked that you were never careful with me. As messed up as it was, we gave each other shit, but it was ... fun. I wanted to strangle you half the time, but I also had to keep myself from smiling, if that makes any sense.”
It did. It made so much sense. Our brains must have been warped in the same way.
I stayed quiet a moment, parsing through the memories and the immaturity that had driven her farther and farther away from me over time.
Eventually, Mac cleared her throat. “Since we’re making decades-old confessions, I guess I should tell you that I overheard you and your friends.” I frowned. “Junior year. Floyd was running his mouth about feeling me up, and you told him not to even bother. That I wasn’t worth it, something like that. It’s not important, but that was why I was so mean to you afterward and during senior year.”
Mac’s attention skittered away from my face, and I figured she remembered more than she was letting on.
An awful awareness left me stunned. I hadn’t even considered that she might have overheard that conversation. I remembered it well. Probably because I regretted it so much. There had been the panic at hearing that Floyd was interested in her. The terrible, untrue things I’d said to warn him away. I’d told him she wasn’t worth the effort. That nobody even wanted her, and she wasn’t evenpretty. When in reality I’d been an immature asshat, too scared to go after her myself and desperate to keep my friend from dating her.
“Mac,” I sighed. I untangled our hands and cupped her jaw, drawing her gaze back to me, hoping she could see every ounce of shame I felt. “I’m so sorry I said those things. It was shitty of me. I was young and stupid, but that’s no excuse. When I realized that my friend was thinking about going after you, I was jealous and misguided. I wish you’d told me. Or confronted me. Or punched me in the damn mouth.”
She laughed a little at that. “I wanted to, but I think I was too stunned to manage it at the time. When you’re seventeen, you didn’t just keep walking when you heard three boys gossiping about you on the high school bleachers. You lurked, and you listened. And then you got even. You know what they say about eavesdroppers anyway.”
My chest squeezed with regret. “I didn’t mean it. I thought you were beautiful and funny and so smart-mouthed and sassy. There has never been a time when I’ve been able to ignore you.”
“So you didn’t want me, but you didn’t want anyone else to have me either?”
“No,” I admitted. “I wanted you. I just wasn’t brave enough to make it happen. I’d thought we had too much history between us, and then after that conversation, I tried being nice, thinking it might make a difference—that it might give me a chance. But you’d been angrier than ever, rebuffing any effort I made to talk to you. And I don’t blame you,” I hurried to add. “I didn’t deserve another chance. Eventually, I fell back into what was easy between us—petty arguments and pranks.”
“Is that why you stopped being friends with Floyd?” she asked quietly, brows furrowed. “Because he went after me?”
“No. I hated what happened and the way he’d gossiped and badmouthed you afterward, spreading those rumors. That was why he lost my friendship.”
“Did you—that night at Abby’s ...” Her voice trailed off, but the question was loud and clear.
“Yeah, that’s why we got into it that night at the bonfire,” I confessed, feeling flayed open, a beating heart that had her name stamped all over it.
“So you’ve defended me twice now?” She brought her hand up to cover mine, her thumb brushing gently over my knuckles.
I thought about the shoving match with Floyd Ellerby and the standoff with Connor Pritchard, and I shook my head. “Not because you needed me to. I know you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself. But because those two assholes are cowards. The only way they’re brave enough to talk shit about you is behind your back, andthatis what I couldn’t allow. It had nothing to do with your pride, Mac, and everything to do with standing up for what’s right.”
“Thank you,” she said finally. “For doing what’s right.”
Eventually, Mac rose to a sitting position. “I’m going to go clean up. You’ll stay?”
I made sure my voice was casual when I replied, “If that’s okay.”
When she settled back into bed with an oversized tee shirt, I’d already pulled on my boxers and gotten beneath the covers. Mac turned off the light from the bedside table and rolled onto her side.
I spooned behind her, my body outlining hers as I breathed in the spicy-sweet scent I loved. I draped an arm across her middle as she wiggled tighter against me.
My thoughts were loud, urging me to talk to Mac about the way I felt. My honesty and vulnerability from earlier hadn’t scared her off, and so the optimistic part of me considered telling her I wanted to date for real. No more of this sneaking around. I wanted to be together out in the open, go on a date without the asterisk. I thought maybe she was ready.
So I said, “Are you happy with how things are?”
I was close enough to feel her body tense and her breathing pause. I wondered if she could detect the rapid beat of my heart against her back.
When she stayed quiet, all my hopefulness evaporated like woodsmoke on a summer night. I quickly backpedaled, “You know, with your new position at the farm? You’re liking it?”
