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She sat at the bar and spun a glass in her hands. “Is there such a thing?” Her lips failed in their attempt at a smile.
“What’s up?” He placed the plate of eggs and waffles in front of her before he took the stool next to her.
“Just thinking.” She poked at the food with her fork. “You and me, what we do, it’s not so different.”
“If you don’t count the fact you enforce the laws I sometimes break, I guess you have a point.”
She shrugged and pushed her food around her plate. “I’m sure we both do things we don’t always think are right. We both lie to the people around us.”
Is that what had been bothering her, the lies they told each other and everyone else? Only, he hadn’t lied to her, except when he’d said he couldn’t love her. To his disappointment, she’d believed every word of it.
“I wonder sometimes who I really am,” she confided. “I mean I know where I come from and who I’msupposedto be, but then I go in as someone new, and—”
“And you feel more comfortable in your skin,” he finished for her.
Her head snapped up and she met his stare. “Exactly. You feel that way too?”
He studied her for a moment, searching her eyes for any clue she was trying to con him. Instead he had a sudden memory of her running across the lush lawn of her parents’ house toward him. He’d been thirteen, and she’d been seven. He’d avoided Brock’s family for weeks while his bruised ribs healed after another battle with his stepfather. Gretchen had spotted him across the lawn and immediately sprinted toward him, yelling his name with her arms outstretched. He’d lifted her, despite the pain in his side, and she’d wrapped her tiny arms around his neck and squeezed.
“I missed you,” she’d told him. He’d told her he missed her too and promised not to disappear for so long again. As he’d placed her back on the ground, she’d kissed his cheek loudly.
“I love you,” she’d said.
And he’d responded, “Me too.”
What would he say if she uttered those three words to him again? Now that he loved her so differently, would he be able to admit his feelings? He cleared his throat, taking a sip of his juice while he got his emotions under control.
“You’re a good person,” he finally told her. “You try to help people, and you lie to do that. The end justifies the means and all that.”
Her green eyes darkened fractionally. “Is that why you do it?”
He forced a laugh. “What’s with the heart-to-heart? I thought we said no interrogations.”
She flinched before visibly shaking off his words. “I’m sorry.” She picked up the plate she’d barely touched and made her way to the sink. With her fork, she scraped the contents away and then reached across to switch on the garbage disposal. The hem of his shirt rode up her thigh to expose the curve of her bottom.
“Stupid of me to think we could talk instead of just having sex.” She looked back over her shoulder with a smile plastered on her face. He didn’t miss the tears that filled her eyes.
What had gotten into her? They didn’tjusthave sex? They mightmostlyhave sex, that was normal for new relationships. He put the brakes on that train of thought. They weren’t in a new relationship, they were only having sex.
Sighing, he rose from his stool and padded to the kitchen. He stopped behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She froze when he ran them down her bare skin to her biceps and rested his forehead against the back of her head. He wished he could share his own confusion with her, not only about himself, but about the two of them together and his growing feelings for her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered instead.
She put down the plate and braced her hands on the sink. “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she lied.
“You know me better than anyone. You’re the only one in this whole world who knows Finn and Jay. You’re certainly the only one who could still . . .” He clamped his mouth shut, afraid to make presumptions about her feelings. “Like me, knowing all you do.”
She shook her head and her hair brushed against his forehead. He breathed her in, under the scent of his own shampoo was the warm, sunshine fragrance of Gretchen.
“You do like me, don’t you?” He kissed her neck and slid his arms around her waist, pulling her tight against him.
She sighed. “I’ve always liked you.”
“Even when you said you hated me?” he hedged. Had it only been a little over a week since she’d uttered those words outside the club? How the hell had he fallen so in love with her in such a short time? Probably because he’d loved her in one form or another her entire life.
“Maybe even especially,” she confessed.
The urge to tell her he loved her rushed through him, and he fought it back, he’d never said those words to a woman, and even with Gretchen, he didn’t know how to be that vulnerable. So, instead he kissed her neck again and moved down to her shoulder. “Why don’t you bring some of your things with you the next time you come? You could leave them, and then you wouldn’t have to lug that huge bag back and forth.”
