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“No. Of course not,” he said, losing all pretence of sweetly sexy man-child he pretended to be with me. “I’m not here just for Valk. I’m here for you, too. I needed to apologise. Iwantedto apologise, Harlow.”
I nodded. “Well, you have. So…”
He took my hand and held it to his chest. “Iamsorry, Harlow. I shouldn’t have left you last night. I was... I was all in my head, but that’s no excuse for the way I treated you.” He brought my hand up and kissed it softly. “I am sorry, Harlow.”
Well.
As much as I wanted to be angry with him, as much as I wanted to slam the door on his pretty face and maybe smash it in a bit… I also...didn’t.
In his eyes stood the boy I knew. The boy I loved. The boy I thought I was so close to losing. He held my hand to his chest. Not just his chest, his heart. Like he was reminding me I had a place there. Like he was telling me I belonged there. For the briefest of moments, I believed it. I knew it to be an irrefutable truth.
He was trying. He might not have been doing a great job, but he was trying. This was new territory for both of us, whatever territory had our hands on each other and our lips nearly meeting in ways they never had before. It was to be expected that we might not do it very well to begin with.
I nodded. “Okay, Apollo.” I nodded again. “I forgive you.”
He smiled. “Yeah?”
I gave him a small smile in return. “Yeah.”
“Boo!” Florence mumbled, but I knew she’d forgive me faster than I’d forgiven him.
Apollo took a deep breath and laughed a breathy sigh of obvious relief. As his hand went to my cheek, he took a step forward and leant his forehead to mine.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
“As lovely as this is,” Florence said. “Can you do it anywhere but here?”
“Well,” Apollo said suavely. “I suppose some of usdoneed their beauty sleep.”
Florence’s arm appeared out of her doona, and she pointed an angry finger at him. “You take that back or so help me, when I’ve had enough sleep, I’ll remove you from your favourite appendage.”
Apollo smiled. “Of course, I’m sorry. Rude of me to bring up something you can never hope to obtain.”
Florence sat up and glared at him. It was impressive even for the fact that her hair was totally matted on one side, and she couldn’t focus her eyes without her glasses.
“Well, at least I’m beautiful on the inside,” she told him. She put her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, we’renotmentioning things other people can never hope to obtain. My bad,” she said sarcastically.
Apollo’s eyes were full of mischief, but he smiled at her winningly. “I’ll forgive you, Flo. Because I’m just that nice.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Flo-rence.”
I grabbed the front of Apollo’s shirt and he turned his attention back to me.
“I’m going to get dressed, then you’re going to get me breakfast,” I told him.
He nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
I shoved him backwards, gave him a smile and closed the door in his face.
“Yourboyfriendis a grade-A hole,” Florence said grumpily as she flopped back into bed.
I nodded as I found some semi-clean clothes to change into. “Yeah. He is what he is, but he’s all I’ve got.”
“What about…?” she whispered.
My eyes slid to her as I kept getting ready. Her eyebrows were waggling half-heartedly in her sleepy state.
“Yeah,” I huffed. “That’s not…” I sighed. “I’m over it.”
