“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because everything did change.” He looked genuinely hurt by her cold shoulder.
Something inside her twisted at the thought.
She wasn’t this person. She wasn’t mean. She didn’t purposely wound people who’d done nothing but be nice to her. “Will, let’s not pretend—”
“Yes, Lauren, let’s not.” His tone mocked her.
She stalled, unsure what to say.
“Let’s not pretend that there isn’t something going on here.” He flicked a hand back and forth between them, as if they were a pair.
She frowned. “What?”
“You and me,” he said. “We like each other, right? Or did I have that completely wrong?”
Her pulse quickened, but her brain slowed. She scrambled for an answer, and found nothing.
“You’re one of the most mature people I know, but right now you’re acting like a child.”
She could hardly believe it. “I’m the child. I’m the child? What about you?”
“What about me?” He seemed genuinely confused.
“You have nothing to say?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw you, Will!” She regretted the words as soon as they were out.
He looked around, as if trying to find the answer laying on the floor in the room. “Saw me where?”
“Nowhere. Just forget it.”
This was so dumb. She scolded herself in her head. Her fear and her pride were going to kill this relationship before it even started.
She had no right to feel the way she did, and yet, this was how she felt. Seeing him at the bar was like seeing him in the kitchen.
The girl even had the same color hair.
How do you tell someone they broke your heart when they don’t even remember the night it happened? How do you explain this was the only way to keep it from happening again? How do you admit feelings you really, really didn’t want to have?
“Lauren. Something is obviously bothering you. I can’t help if you won’t talk.”
A traitorous knot tied itself at the base of her throat. He was right, she was acting like a child. This was the part of the movie where everyone watching screams “Just tell him already!”
Heck, even she was internally screaming that. But stopping that meant talking, and talking meant opening up, and opening up meant hurt.
“It’s nothing. I’m just dealing with some stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Personal stuff. I’ll stop taking it out on you.”
“Lauren, I don’t care if you take it out on me, but I can’t fight a battle that I don’t even know I’m in.”
He watched her, and she nearly shrunk under his gaze.
“Lauren, I like you.”
Her eyes shot to his, as if somehow, she had the ability to deduce whether he was being sincere. She wasn’t a good judge and she knew it.
“What do you mean?”
And that’s when he smiled, and her stomach flip-flopped, and the cage she’d built around her heart began to crack.
“I mean, I like you. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re a huge pain, a horrible traveler, and you drive me absolutely crazy.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “But I can’t stop thinking about you. You are who you say you are. You don’t try to be something you’re not or waste time playing games. You’re smart, and you don’t pretend you’re not. You’re beautiful, but you have no idea. You know what you want, and you go for it.”
“That’s not true,” she said quietly.
“Seems like it to me.”
“But you don’t know what I want.” She looked up, desperate, and found his eyes.
He took a calming breath. “Then tell me.”
She wanted to, so badly. The words were right there, right there, about to spill out of her like a tipped-over bucket of water.
“Can we go outside?”
He nodded immediately. “Sure.”
They paid their check, then walked in silence to the Jeep. He was waiting for her to say something, and she wasn’t sure she could. Her emotions were on the spin cycle.
She looked around, trying to find a hiding place.
“I saw you last night with that woman,” she finally blurted.
No going back now.
He looked at her, and she looked away, hating how naked she felt at the admission she’d been bothered at all. Admitting how it made her feel meant admitting she had feelings to betray. It was a whole lot of transparency, and she wasn’t ready for it.