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Chapter Twenty
“Annie.” Chase’s tonestopped me in my tracks. “Don’t spend another night on the couch. Take one of the beds. Better yet, stay and talk to us. If I have to promise I’ll never tell you again how gorgeous you are, to get you to talk to me, I will.”
I turned, scrunching my nose in distaste. “I’m not good with that.”
“Which part of it?” Sincerity radiated from his expression. “How about, I can still shower you with compliments, and you can go back to pretending you think it’s harmless?”
How did I ever do that? “None of what’s happened this week gets undone. I want our friendship back, but I can’t forget.”
“Good. Because not all of this was bad,” Luke said. “Not to me.”
I leaned against the doorframe and jammed my hands in my pockets. “It only took the one bad thing to sour it all. But I won’t forget the good either.”
“If you want another apology, I’ll give you one. Over and over.” Chase looked so sweet. The boy next door. The guy I would have given my heart to years ago, if this were a movie.
I didn’t want more apologies. “I get it—you’re sorry. I can’t say it’s okay, because it wasn’t. But I do forgive you.” When the words rolled out of my mouth, they took a huge weight with them that I hadn’t know I was carrying. God, that felt good. It couldn’t be wrong if it was this much of a relief.
“Sure you don’t want one more apology?” A hint of playfulness leaked into Chase’s question. “Me, on my knees at your feet, worshiping you?” He stood.
Luke grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him back to the bed. “That’s not an apology; it’s oral sex.”
“The two are frequently the same,” Chase said.
“Not when we’re apologizing for objectifying her.”
I couldn’t help my smile as I pulled out a chair from the desk and sat. “I could stay for a little while longer. It’s not like I was getting anything done, all the way out there in the other room.”
“You haven’t eaten yet, have you?” Chase was abruptly serious.
I shook my head.
Luke raised his hand. “Question. I’ve been wondering this for a while, and I can finally ask—what’s your obsession with feeding Anne?”
Obsession...? I’d never thought about it like that before.
“Did you consider tackling that asshole you fired today, when he came at her verbally?” Chase asked.
Now I knew what they’d been talking about when I wasn’t listening. War stories from the conference room.
Luke looked at me. “I not only considered it, I ran a split-second list of pros and cons, and I’m still tempted to find him and punch him for the way he treated you.”
The protectiveness in his body language and words made me feel gooey inside. “People say things like that to other people all the time.” Shitty, but true.
“But he said it to you.” Luke told me before turning back to Chase. “What does this have to do with food? Did someone beat up Anne’s food once?”
“You okay with me telling this story, Annie?”
Chase’s question triggered a rush from the past when I realized what he was asking. I was touched that he wanted my permission. “Here, yes. Nowhere else.” Everyone who mattered, except for Luke, already know about this part of my life. I didn’t know if I could tell the tale myself.
“Annie’s a fairytale princess, but Grimm got her origin story a little mixed up.”
“I buy it,” Luke said.
I’d never thought about my life that way before. “I’m not.”
“Her mother passed away and left her to be raised by an evil stepfather.” Chase slid into storytelling mode with his typical ease. “Down to the fact that he was the perfect member of the community in public. Everyone loved this dude.”
“Ah.” Luke frowned.
