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“Yes.”
“And would you hand that same responsibility over to a random thirty-year-old that you met in town?”
“No,”he said.
“So I must somehow be more responsible.”
“I know you,” he said. “And yeah, you’re responsible.”
“So it doesn’t matter what I was ten years ago, does it? We both know that I’m not a kid. We both know that I’m damn well mature enough to handle myself. And I definitely don’t need to be talked down to just becauseyou’reuncomfortable.”
“Well, it’s an uncomfortable thing to say.”
“I’mnot uncomfortable with it.”
“Well, I am.”
“Why? Is it because it disgusts you? Or is it because it interests you?”
“Don’t ask me that,” he said, knowing right away that that response was the biggest mistake he could’ve given. He should’ve just told herno. Because the truth was, while his mind had gone to some bad places real quick, she was still Frankie. And the idea of actually touching her...
Lust kicked through his stomach. Hard. And that made him angry. Because he wanted this to be more complicated than that. He wanted Frankie to be a damn sight moreoff-limitsthan that.
He didn’t want that moment with her wet T-shirt, and that moment she’d been by the stove in those jeans, and this moment to be bigger than the last ten years and everything else they’d been.
But it felt like it might be.
“I’m a man, Frankie.”
“That only means something if you don’t think I’m a child but recognize that I’m a woman.” She was stubborn and mutinous and he wanted to throttle her.
“Obviously you’re a woman,” he said.
“So what are you trying to say? That you’re interested by virtue of the fact that you’re a man and I’m a woman? And that’s it?”
“Interested is taking it a step too far.”
“It’s making you uncomfortable because it turns you on?”
“What the hell is wrong with you? I’m giving you a place to stay—are you trying to get kicked out of your second house in one day?”
“You won’t kick me out.”
“I might.”
“I’m just saying what Chad said to me. If it bothers you, that’s hardly my problem. That makestwomen who are oppressed by the idea of who I may or may not want to fuck, and I actually didn’t say that I wanted you at all.” She crossed her arms and pushed herself back from the table. “I’m going to go clean the kitchen.”
“You didn’t eat.”
“I don’t need to eat. I have already been insulted, thrown out of my house, and condescended to today, so I’m going to pass on any more of that. I’m just done.”
He stood up and grabbed her arm, pulling her toward him, and her eyebrows shot up, her mouth dropping open. “Be honest. What response were you hoping to get out of that? It was bratty, and you know it.”
She blinked, and he couldn’t ignore the tears in her eyes. “I wasn’t... I wasn’t trying to be bratty.”
“What were you trying to do?”
“Nothing I just... Walker, I thought... I just wanted to see...”
