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She didn’t miss the thumbs-up Tommy sent her way as he was getting into his car. Beth sighed as she faced Drew and tried to prepare herself for what she was about to do. “Would you like to take a walk with me?”
“Sure.”
Drew seemed a little surprised, but he followed her down the alley and out onto the sidewalk that ran along the front of the café. She turned left, setting a leisurely pace. As they continued to walk, Beth realized he was intentionally keeping himself a step behind her. “You can walk beside me. I’m not your mistress, and we aren’t playing. There’s no protocol.”
Beth actually thought she saw him blush.
“Sorry. I don’t . . .” He shook his head. “Sorry.”
He lengthened his step a little and fell in beside her. “Thank you.”
“It’s my fault. I feel like I keep screwing this up,” he said.
“You’re not. If it were anyone else, I’m sure it wouldn’t be this complicated.”
Drew shot her one of his killer smiles. “Maybe I like complicated.”
She laughed.
They passed several more storefronts before either of them spoke.
Beth took a deep breath. “I want to apologize to you.”
“For what?”
“I told you we could be friends, but so far I’ve done a really crappy job at holding up my end of things.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.” There was no room for argument in her tone. “Although I said it, I didn’t mean it. Truthfully, I was hoping you’d lose interest and go away.”
“Is that what you want?” Beth didn’t miss the hint of disappointment.
She groaned. “This isn’t coming out the way I wanted it to. I wanted to apologize, and then offer for us to start again. Somehow I’ve even managed to screw up the apology.”
He stopped, so she did, too.
Drew’s brow was furrowed. It looked as if he was deep in thought about something. “So what does that mean, exactly?”
Beth released a harsh breath. “It means that before when I said we could be friends I didn’t really mean it.”
“And now?” he asked.
“And now? I’d like for us to try to be friends. Real friends. I still can’t offer you more than that right now, but . . .”
He didn’t answer right away. “How would this real friends thing work? As opposed to the fake friends thing.”
When she realized he wasn’t upset, she relaxed a little. “I suppose it means we would talk, hang out, that sort of thing. Isn’t that what friends do?”
“It is. I guess I’m just wanting to make sure I know the ground rules.”
Beth nodded and started walking again.
Drew fell into step beside her.
“Okay. Rule number one. While we can hang out, it can’t be anything remotely like a date.”
“So no showing up at your door with flowers. Got it.”
