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“This is a bad idea,” she says. “I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t even thinking about kissing you, but then…” She presses a hand to her lips. “I can’t do this, Mac. I can’t just do what feels good and make a stupid choice.”
That hits me right in the chest so hard I’m glad I’m sitting down. “I’m a stupid choice?”
She looks at the ceiling and pulls in a deep breath. “That’s not what I meant. This is about my sisters. I can’t make it about a guy.”
“You aren’t just some girl to me, Honey. I really like you.”
She pops her hands on her hips. “That doesn’t make it better. I don’t want to sound like I’m feeding you a line, but I’m genuinely not in a good place right now.” She hesitates, narrowing her eyes. “And you’re on sabbatical from whatever college you work for. I’m assuming it’s not the university here, since your aunt doesn’t know you’re in the area, but I don’t know, because I don’t know you.”
“I teach at a college in California.” I get as close to the truth as I dare. “And you do know me. You know I love to play guitar and I’m outdoorsy. You know my best friend is a goat and—”
Her eyes go wide. “Your best friend is a goat?”
I hadn’t put a lot of thought into the words before I spoke them, but I can’t deny them. I have a lot of friends, but few I trust and even fewer I can count on when things get rough. Since my messy, explosive break up from Lucia, I’ve heard from only a handful of people and mostly just to make sure we’re still on for whatever project we’d agreed to work on together.
Rafaella and Heidi have been the only ones truly on my side, and I pay them.
“Barley is the only person in my life who doesn’t want something from me,” I say, more honestly than I mean to.
I freeze for a moment, but Honey just looks at me sympathetically. “It’s lonely, isn’t it?”
“So lonely.”
“So maybe you just kissed me because you’re lonely and horny?” She says it hopefully, and it’s an arrow to my chest.
“Sure.” That’s what she wants to hear, and I can’t bear more rejection right now. “You’re right. We shouldn’t have done that. We’re partners. We don’t need to muddy the waters.”
She nods, but she’s frowning thoughtfully. She tilts her head toward the door. “I should go?”
“Stay. If you leave, I’ll just sit here, strumming my guitar and singing sad, lonely songs.”
She smiles, finally. “That does sound awful.”
“It’s the worst.”
She tilts her chin down, her long lashes brushing her cheek as she blinks. “I should warn you, I’m hyper competitive, even when it comes to playing music.”
My heart swells with a dangerous kind of hope. “I can handle it.”
CHAPTER TEN
Honey
I’m still smiling the next morning as I sip my coffee and stir my oatmeal. I had more fun last night with Mac than I can remember having in years. He didn’t mind my competitiveness. In fact, he seemed to enjoy it. The more I growled and swore like a potter who’s just opened their kiln to a pile of exploded ceramics, the more he laughed, delighted by my need to be the better guitar player and, later, to win every board game we played.
It annoyed me at first, to be laughed at when I was so frustrated, but eventually, it made me laugh too and to take the games less seriously. I’m pretty sure he let me win more than once, but he seemed so happy to give me those wins. I couldn’t bear to yell at him for taking the fun out of the game.
I’d been mean enough telling him the kiss was a mistake. It was a supremely stellar kiss, better than getting the clay to spin just right on the wheel, and I wanted, more than anything, to fall into him and never come up for air.
That’s what I did with Dell and that was clearly a stunningly poor choice. I can’t make the same mistake again. I already know the pain of losing Mac or discovering he’s a raging asshole at heart would hurt more than it did with Dell.
Because despite knowing that Mac’s lying about his profession and my deep suspicion, which was only reinforced by the way he shoved me out of his office, that he’s into something criminal, I’m drawn to him.
I cannot let myself fall for another bad boy.
Plus, I can’t lose myself in a man right now. I need to pull my sisters away from their own men for some quality sibling time.
“There.” Dani pulls a tray of muffins out of the oven and plops it on the stovetop. “That’s the last batch for today.”
