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“What lines? You’re doing that thing where you don’t make sense anymore,” I tell him.
He passes me the flower, the tips of the petals starting to curl and wither, but I don’t care. I love it.
“You piss me offdaily,and there have been times, many of them, if I’m honest, where I haven’t exactly liked you, but I have alwayswantedyou. From the second I saw you at that party, you’ve been all I can think about. It’s very annoying.”
I can hear his words and every one of them are spoken in plain English, but I still can’t string them together in my mind.
“But you’ve been horrible to me since the day we met,” I eventually say, clutching the flower in my fist.
“Have I?”
Let’s welcome the portal back to the room. “Um.Yes, Casper.”
“I remember when we met clearly. I’ve been over it enough times.”
“I remember, too. Freya, Imani, and I were at Marvin and Reggie’s party during the first week of uni. You came over to me and pretty much propositioned me for sex.”
He narrows his eyes. “I did not offer you sex.”
“But I saw you flirting with quite a few women before you came over to me.”
“So? What did I say toyou?”
“Well… You asked me my name, how I was, and what I was studying…”
“My God, I was a monster.” He shakes his head. “You should have thrown your drink in my face.”
He’s the very definition of sarcastic.
“If I had a drink, I would do that right now.”
He laughs, taking a small step towards me.
“You sleep around. I didn’t want to be just another one of your conquests.”
“You keep talking about how I am with other women. Fucking hell, Ainsley, is that what you’ve based your opinion of me on all this time?” He sounds a bit frantic now, like he can’t believe how dumb I’ve been.
“Hold on, are you telling me all of this was my fault? That you didn’t just want to sleep with me and move on? We didn’t need to be fighting for years?”
He takes another step, and his fingertips glide along my jaw. I close my eyes for a second, resisting the urge to nuzzle into his touch.
“No, it wasn’t all your fault. I could have explained things better. I could have explained at all. I was never propositioning you that day. I had been talking to other girls, of course. I was eighteen and horny and had just started uni. Then you walked into the room, and that was it. I was so irritated that I’d finally found you right at a point in my life where I should’ve been free and single.”
“I thought you…”
“I know. You saw me flirting and assumed I was trying to do the same with you. All I wanted was to get to know you. Ainsley, I walked away from a woman I was talking to mid-sentence when I saw you. I should have been clear and told you that I liked you rather than letting you believe the worst in me. That’s on me.”
What. A. Revelation.
“Why didn’t you?” I whisper, aching with the thoughts of what could’ve been.
He hooks his finger over my waistband and tugs me closer until I’m against his chest.
I’m home.
“Wounded ego at first. You’d shut me down—the only woman I’d ever met who I didn’t want to just fuck and leave. God, Ainsley, I was floored when I first laid eyes on you. So, when you blew me off, I was… hurt. We fell into a pattern of fighting and being awful to each other, and I took it.”
“Did you like the arguing?”
