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She scoffed. “Come on. You never make mistakes like that. You’re always perfect.”
Chris sat next to her and put his arm around the back of the couch. “I’m perfect?”
Kelly turned her head and he watched her full lips dip into a frown. “Yeah. You were our high school valedictorian, you went off to kick ass at law school and I bet you already have your retirement account doubled by now.”
“My account has doubled, but I set up your retirement too, so it’s probably pretty close to mine. Plus, you got your business degree and make a fantastic living doing what you love. So how am I any better than you?”
Her voice was heavy with emotion as she responded, “I don’t know. I just feel like I’ve been wasting time, and I realize that I’m going to be thirty-two in October. I spent my twenties buried in Something Borrowed, and I have nothing else. My friends have all moved away or are caught up in husbands and babies.”
“You have the Buzzard Gulch project.”
“That’s true, but still, it’s just another extension of Something Borrowed.”
“And I don’t see how you feeling as though you’re wasting your life has to do with me being perfect?”
“Because at least you’ve tried things. I’ve never left Sweetheart, not even on vacation. You’ve been to Europe, Australia, and South America.”
He’d been to more continents than that, but didn’t want to make her feel bad by correcting her.
“You could have come on that senior trip with Ray and me.”
She turned on the couch, so she was facing him. “Are you kidding me? My mother was already freaking out because she knew Ray and I were fooling around. She’d have never let me go because she was convinced I’d be kidnapped and murdered by a billionaire for sport.”
Chris hoped she hadn’t noticed his wince when she mentioned sex with Ray. Of course, he knew it had happened, but he didn’t want to hear about it, even vaguely. “You realize that is the plot of Hostel, right?”
“Exactly. It was the last time I suggested we watch a horror movie together. She obsessed over it for months, and started researching human trafficking for hunting purposes.”
Chris laughed. “Still, you could travel now.”
“By myself? Color me pathetic.”
“You have girlfriends.”
“Who all left to go to college and
explore the world.”
“You’re just determined to complain tonight, aren’t you?”
Her cheeks turned bright red. “Sorry. I’m just…I want some excitement.”
“And getting a second degree burn on your arm isn’t thrilling?”
“No, dumbass, it is not.”
Chris wrapped his arms around her and pulled her toward him, being careful of her gauze-wrapped arm. “You know, if you want to go somewhere, you could always ask me.”
She relaxed against him with a laugh, her warm breath coming through his T-shirt and burning across the skin of his chest.
“You want to go with me to exotic locales?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Come on. I came back to Sweetheart because you wanted me to. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for you.”
Chris realized the implications of what he’d just said a moment before she lifted her head and met his gaze.
“There isn’t?”
His heart rate kicked up a notch, creating a steady drumming in his ears. Before he could really think about the repercussions of what he was doing, he cupped her face in his hands.
