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“Yeah.” She threw a hand on her hip, an annoyed scowl slanting her lips, her fingers lifting her shirt enough to display a two-inch-wide strip of skin above her purple boy shorts.
They were my new favorite thing, and I shut my eyes to them, losing my train of thought. “You don’t, uh, wear clothes anymore?”
“I was in bed. Sorry I don’t meet your pajama standards. I’m sure you sleep fully dressed.”
The mental picture of her in bed had me shooting my eyes back open, and I felt the papers fold under my tightening grip before throwing them down. “You always do this. You blame me for this high-and-mighty bullshit. I’m not like that.”
Gemma muttered an argument under her breath, and between the stress at work and the direction this conversation was headed, my temper exploded. “I don’t have standards! In fact, if I had my way, I’d prefer you completely naked. All the time.”
She huffed, her lip curling in anger. “Do you think I’m dumb? You must.”
“What?”
“You think I’m going to fall for that? You come in here and toss around a few ridiculous lines about getting naked and think I’ll come crawling back?” She took two steps closer to me, hissing, “You get to do whatever you want, thinking you can pick me up and put me down at your leisure? You’re wrong. I’m not going to wait around for you. I am not anyone’s second choice!” She had risen up on her toes, shouting the last word at me.
I held my hand up to quiet her. “Believe it or not, Gemma, but you don’t exactly give off that weepy kind of woe-is-me vibe, and, quite frankly, I wouldn’t be here, in this never-ending cage match with you, if you did. You don’t have to tell me how fucking tough you are. I already know. So, can you, for once, shut up and give me a chance to explain?”
“There’s nothing to explain. You left me at the reception to go play nice with another woman.”
“I know, and I was wrong,” I said, but my irritation got the best of me. “Something else to add to the list. Along with the car I drive, what I eat, what I wear, everything I say. It’s all wrong.”
“Because you are wrong. You can’t talk to me the way you do. You can’t—”
“You think this is all my fault? Everything we’ve ever said or done to each other since we’ve met? It’s all my fault?” I stood right in front of her, my breath ragged as if I’d run a marathon—being with Gemma sometimes felt like that—as I stared down at her. With our bodies mere centimeters from each other, her indignation started to wilt, and something close to tears took its place.
“You can’t look at me the way you do and then choose some other girl,” she said in a barely audible voice, and if I could have ripped my heart out of my chest to show it to her, I would have.
“I can’t help it. I can’t help looking at you.” I dared to touch her, tracing my fingertips over her jaw. “I can’t stop this. What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me the truth,” she said hoarsely.
I ventured lower, curving my hand around her neck. “The truth is I’ve never felt like this before. I know you don’t believe me, but I don’t fight with people, Gemma. I don’t argue with people every day like I do with you. But that’s why it’s different. I want to be here with you. For some godforsaken reason, I would rather fight with you than be with anyone else.”
“You’re right. I don’t believe you.” Her voice was small, and her eyes, usually so bright and full of spirit, dulled.
And it was my fault.
My blood coursed with primal desire to show her how it could be between us, how good we could be together, but I needed her to come to me. I had to prove I wasn’t the guy she thought I was.
I wrapped my fingers tight around her biceps. “Believe me. I’m here, and I’m not letting you go.”
When her forehead pressed to my sternum, she mumbled words into my chest that I couldn’t understand, and I lifted her chin. “What?”
“You make me feel stupid,” she said.
I bent my knees, getting closer to her eye level. “Why?”
“For wanting to be with you.”
My heart galloped away, and I couldn’t help my smile. “That’s not stupid,” I said, molding my hand to her jaw.
“It is when you grow up with a mother who only ever concerned herself with jumping into relationships. I never thought I would be like that, but that’s what it feels like with you. Like I’m jumping without looking.”
I breathed out a sigh, drawing the tip of my nose along hers. “But you’re not jumping alone. I am too.”
She swallowed, taking a moment to digest my words, and I held steady, although my eyebrows rose slightly in question. “Gem?”
She answered by stretching up on her toes, tangling her fingers in my hair to pull me close, and, Christ, I’d follow wherever she wanted me to. When her lips touched mine, I forgot about everything else. Gemma and her perfect, smart mouth and her fearless yet sensitive spirit had ruined me. Past Jason no longer existed. Future Jason had yet to be shaped. As long as it was by her hands, I didn’t care what it looked like.
