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Something in his tone made me stop dead in my tracks, the plates I’d just pulled out of the cabinet extended midway in the air. I took him in,reallytook him in, for the first time since he’d startled me, and all of a sudden, the atmosphere in the kitchen shifted.
“I appreciate everything you’re doing, but I don’t think I can stay for breakfast.”
I deflated just a bit at his words, as well as his demeanor. I’d woken up this morning feelinggreat, but the way he was carrying himself and the expression on his face told me he wasn’t sharing in my good mood.
My stomach plummeted. “Oh. Okay. That’s fine. I can pack it up if you want.”
He stopped me as I reached to open a cabinet. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, the hold protective against the chill I suddenly felt. The man standing in front of me certainly wasn’t the one I’d spent two hours talking to before inviting him home with me last night.
The Holton currently standing in my kitchen was awkward and distant and uncomfortable as hell, and if I didn’t know better, he was about two seconds from bolting out of my house so damn fast, he’d scorch my carpet in his wake.
“Is everything okay?”
He cleared his throat and stuffed his hands in his pockets as those pale jade eyes bounced all around, looking anywhere but at me.
“Look, Lyric, last night was great—”
Holy shit.
Was he seriously about to do what I thought he was about to do?
“But I think we can both agree that it probably shouldn’t have happened.”
Yep. He sure as hell was.
My eyebrows shot up toward my hairline. “It probably shouldn’t have happened?” I wanted to pat myself on the back for not shouting or squeaking that sentence.
“Yeah, I mean, we’d both been drinking—”
I squeezed my eyes closed and held up my hand to silence him. “Please, just stop talking.”
His voice was an uncomfortable croak, like he was choking on his discomfort. “Lyric, I’m really sorry.”
I blinked, pushing down the hurt I was feeling so I could concentrate on being angry. Pissed off was so much better than sad, as far as I was concerned. “For what? For fucking me or for standing in front of me and insulting my intelligence by blaming it on too much alcohol when we both know better?”
“I’m really sorry.”
The fact that I was standing in the middle of my kitchen with the town’s ultimate good guy trying to let me down easy after a night where he’d shown me a whole other side of himself was almost laughable.
Almost.
“Yeah, I’m sure you are,” I said flatly. But was he sorry for hurting my feelings or for screwing me in the first place.
He shifted uncomfortably on his boots. “I think you’re great, really. I’m just not in a place right now to start anything serious.”
His brush-off couldn’t have been any more clichéd if he’d watched every 90s teen movie ever made and copied them line for line. There was just one gaping flaw in the bullshit he was currently trying to feed me.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat, grasping onto my anger by my nails so I wouldn’t cry. “Let me see if I have this straight. A few months ago, youwerein the market for something serious, but only if that something happened with my best friend. Do I have that right?”
I watched him closely as the color drained from his face. It could be said that our situation had been slightly complicated from the beginning. When Deva had been as new to town as I was, Holton had seen her sweet innocence and jumped at the chance to be with her. Unfortunately for him, she and her boss, Laeth Harker, had been falling in love at the same time. Now she was in the midst of her happily ever after. I had to admit, it stung more than a little to watch Holton pursue my closest friend, but I’d kept my mouth shut, content to let things happen how they were supposed to.
I thought last night was my shot, but oh how wrong I’d been.
“It’s... complicated.”
I arched a brow, laughing bitterly. “Not really. At least be man enough to say it how it is, Holton. Deva’s the kind of woman you could get serious about. I’m just the one you pick up at a bar when you’re in the mood for a dirty fuck.”
