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“You feel guilty for hooking up with me so you’re trying to make yourself feel better by convincing yourself that you like me, when you don’t. ”
“Wha…” The more she talks, the more my mind becomes a cluttered mess. “I like you. I.
Like. You. I’ll admit, you’re annoying.
Sometimes you agitate me to the brink of insanity, but you can throw it back at me like no one else. When you laugh, I want to laugh.
When you smile, I want to smile. Hell, I want to be the one to make you smile. And you’re pretty. No, you’re sexy, and last night was…”
“Stop. ” Beth holds out her hand. “You’re a good guy and you don’t want to think you could have done something not good, okay?
What we did wasn’t bad. It wasn’t wholesome, but it wasn’t bad. Don’t read anything more into it. ”
Beth’s beautiful blue eyes are pleading with me. Pleading! She wants me to agree with her.
“If you really feel that way, then why did you bolt last night?”
The front door opens and, with narrowed eyes, Scott glares at me from the other side of the storm door. Beth glances at him over her shoulder and holds his gaze. He walks away, leaving the front door open. A knot forms between my shoulder blades. Not good.
“You should go,” says Beth.
Probably, but I can’t. Not with Beth telling me that I don’t like her. Not when she honestly believes it. “Go out with me again—a real date this time. ”
“What?”
I climb the three steps and sit next to her. We were so close last night. Skin against skin.
She’s inches from me, but it feels like miles.
My hand becomes heavy with the need to touch her, comfort her. I raise it. Put it down.
Come on, I had no problems touching her last night. I raise it again and place my hand over hers.
Under my fingers, Beth stiffens. My heart beats once against my chest, creating an ache. I don’t want her to hate my touch. “We’ve started everything ass backwards. I like you. Let’s see what happens. ”
“Date you?” she asks.
“Date me. ”
“Like friends…” Beth scrunches her face in disgust “…with benefits?”
I can almost feel her body under mine again and I shake away the memory. I’m not going to prove to her I like her if we have a repeat performance of last night. “No. Friends who go out together. I pay. You smile. Sometimes we kiss. ”
She raises a skeptical eyebrow on the word kiss and I immediately backtrack. “But we date first—for a while. Friends who like each other and want to date. ”
“I never said I liked you. ”
I chuckle and a warm tingle enters my blood when she gives that small, peaceful smile.
“You haven’t said you hate me. ”
“Friends who date,” she says as if she’s trying to find the hidden meaning in the phrase.
“Friends who date,” I repeat and squeeze her fingers.
Beth tenses and withdraws her hand. “No. ”
She pads down the stairs on bare feet. “No. This isn’t the way things work. Guys like you don’t date girls like me. What angle are you playing? Is this about the dare?”
