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“I don’t want to fight,” she admits softly and steps farther into the garage. I’ve cut all the overhead fluorescent lights, and now there’s only the glow of a single lightbulb on my trouble light, casting shadows all over the space.
She tilts her head to the side, and her high ponytail falls in a swoosh with the movement.
I want to wrap that hair around my hand, pull her head back, and bite her neck.
Instead, I turn away from her.
“Good. We agree, then. See you, Sid.”
“Stop.” Her voice is hard now, and I turn to see her scowling at me. “I want to have a conversation, Keaton.”
“Jesus.” I walk over to the utility sink in the corner and wash my hands, then dry them on a paper towel. “Okay, if you insist, let’s do that. What would you like to talk about?”
“I’m sorry, okay?”
That makes me pause.
“I’ve had time to give the whole situation a lot of thought, and I was wrong, too.” She bites her lip. She’s not wearing any makeup, which I happen to prefer on her. “I got all caught up in my excitement, and I wanted to share it with you. When you—quite firmly, by the way—made it clear that you didn’t want anything to do with sharing an important moment in my life, it really hurt my feelings, and I lashed out at you. It was childish and wrong of me because you have never lied to me or made any kind of promises.”
“You threw me,” I admit. “We’d made it clear that we had a thing going on while you were in Seattle, and I explained to you before that I’m not willing to live any kind of public life. I thought we agreed on that.”
“We did,” she says, nodding. “Like I said, you never lied. I just got swept up in the thrill of it, and it was my mistake for wanting to include you in that excitement. I apologize.”
My chest loosens for the first time in over a week. “Thank you for that.”
Sidney nods, pulls her hands out of her pants, and takes a few steps toward me.
“I hear you’ve moved on.”
That makes her stop cold and frown at me. “What?”
“With the country star.”
She shakes her head slowly, scowling as if she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, and then her face clears, and she shakes her head.
“Oh, no. Rick and I are friends. We were both going to the event and decided to go together, that’s all.”
Now the knots in my stomach loosen.
“So, no man in Nashville waiting for you?”
“No.” She takes a few steps toward me. “Keaton, I don’t know how you’ve missed it, but you’re the one I’m interested in.”
“How did I miss it?” I demand with a laugh. “Oh, I don’t know….. You threw me out of the condo when I tried to apologize. You made it clear that we were done.”
“No, I didn’t. I made it clear that I was pissed. Those are two very different things.”
“Not from where I’m standing.”
She blows out a breath, curses under her breath, and kicks at something on the floor.
“Have I fucked this up beyond repair?” she finally asks, turning to me with so much emotion rolling through her gorgeous blue eyes, it’s almost my undoing. “I mean, I know I messed up, but is it too bad to fix it?”
“No,” I finally admit. “And if I’m being brutally honest, we both did some fucking up here. I could have communicated better, and I should have tried harder. But I think we need to establish what it is that we’re fixing here, Sidney. Is it still friends with benefits whenever you’re in Seattle?”
She frowns, and her hands ball into fists and then relax again, as if she wants to reach out for me, so I put us both out of our misery and reach out to take her hand in mine.
Sidney sighs in relief and walks right into my arms, buries her face in my chest, and holds on tight.
“I really missed you,” she admits, her voice muffled against my shirt. “Even though you smell bad.”
My lips twitch at that, and I bury them in her hair. “I work with grease.”
“Yeah.” She pulls back and keeps my hand in hers. “Are you hungry?”
That’s code for feed me.
“I was just closing up the shop. Let’s go inside and get some pizza. I’ll take a quick shower, and we can continue this talk.”
“Thank God you didn’t kick me out of here.”
“I’m a sucker for you,” I reply truthfully as I lock up the shop and take her hand once more to walk to the house. “There’s no car in the driveway.”
“I know.” She shrugs. “I had Gray drop me off.”
“What if I had kicked you out?”
“He would have come to get me. He might have beat you up while he was at it, though.”
