I heard him swear under his breath. “Not right,” he murmured, but I heard him loud and clear. Felt like my tender heart just got trampled on; it actually ached in my chest. How could kissing him be “not right” in his book when it was a blockbuster New York Times bestseller to me? How could I be so far off the mark here when he was talking about pheromones in the air? I thought about it a bit more while he was busy not talking to me.
Was he talking about me and my pheromones? Like I was so obviously hot for him he could smell it coming off me? Could this be a one-sided deal, and he only kissed me because I practically begged him too? Again. He did try to stop, but I forced him to continue on.
Oh my God!—I was the aggressor here. Suddenly, I had the urge to crawl under a rock. Was busy feeling like the country floozy Ranger took me for when Pete finally spoke: “Kate?” His voice sounded better, but I wasn’t about to turn around, sure I was covered head-to-toe in a stinky layer of humiliation.
He put a hand on my shoulder, which I hastened to shrug off. How dare he touch me now!
“Kate, please. I’m sorry. Look”—he took my arm to turn me around— “let me explain.”
Tears, I didn’t want him to see, were pooling in my eyes. “Don’t touch me!”
He chuckled a little, trying his hand at levity. “That’s what you should’ve said two minutes ago.”
It was the wrong move, making light of this. A hand, that I angrily smacked away, tried to turn me again. “Stop! Gah! What’s wrong with you?”
Pete sighed deeply, running a hand through his hair. In a low, reasonable voice he said, “If you’ll turn around, I’ll tell you.”
Everything was ruined now . . . shoulda known heaven-on-earth wouldn’t happen for me. Liquid outrage began burning trails down my face.
“Kate,” Pete said tenderly, “are you crying?”
“No.” I furiously swiped them away.
He swore a low oath then forcefully picked me up to face him, holding me in place by my arms.
“What?” I glared through tears.
Pete sighed again, his eyes the dark pools of chocolate that always seem to melt my heart. “I don’t know what to say . . . I’m sorry.” He wiped a couple of drops away with his thumb.
“Sorry? Sorry for what?”
“Sorry that I hurt your feelings for one—that’s the last thing I wanted to do.” He wiped another hot drop from the other side now.
I sniffed a little, staring at him with wounded eyes. He did look like he felt sorry . . . sorry for me. He took my face and kissed me on the cheek, like a father does a child that’s fallen down and gotten a boo-boo. Somehow, this hurt my feelings all over again. Did he just not see me in that way at all? Duh. Obviously, Kate—he’s majorly out of my league. Gah! How could I have been so stupid? I was swallow-me-up-mortified and could not have this conversation now. Or ever.
I scrambled away from him and got to my feet, not wanting to be where I wasn’t wanted. “You know what? It’s fine,” I said, brushing imaginary debris from my jeans. “I-I don’t know what got into me. I’m really tired . . . and under a lot of stress.” I glared down at him, so he’d exactly know where that stress was coming from. “So let’s just pretend it never happened.”
A strange assortment of emotions flitted across Pete’s face before finally settling on his old standby. “Still friends?” he grinned.
Stiff nod from me.
He stood up, too, putting a hand out. “Well alrighty then, buddy . . . shake on it?” I was loathe to shake his hand at the moment but wanted to attempt to be mature so shoved my hand into his, barely meeting his eyes. He grasped it and pulled me into him, catching me by surprise and off balance, so that I fell into his hug. “Hey, I’m a hugger remember?”
He may as well have been hugging a statue for all the effort I put into it. He looked down at me frowning, though wisely remained silent. I stepped away from him the second he released me.
“Let’s eat, shall we?” he said, a little too brightly.
Eating in front of him was the last thing I wanted to do now. While he unpacked food I wasn’t gonna eat, I bent down to retrieve my glasses. Dang it! They had gotten broken, somehow, in our mishap of a make-out. That was the second pair in a week because of him. Pete must’ve felt the heat from my glare burning a hole through his T-shirt, because he looked up to see them dangling from my fingers like a wiry spider.
“Oops,” he said cheerfully. “No big deal, right? They can be replaced.”
His flippant attitude ruffled my feathers even more. “Right,” I bit out. “No big deal . . . if you have twenty-twenty vision.” It really wasn’t a big deal because I could see just fine. But for all he knew, I actually needed those glasses to see with.
Pete’s hands stopped arranging a gourmet’s selection of snack items. He cocked his head sideways, reminding me of a golden retriever trying to make sense of what his master said. “Uh . . . right. I guess you do need those for class,” he said in an odd-sounding voice, then quickly brightened again. “It looks like we’ll be running a little late anyway, so we may as well run by an optometrist—give us a solid excuse for that tardy.”
“I don’t have my checkbook with me, and I don’t have enough cash to pay for new glasses and buy groceries,” I pointed out, which was a big mistake because I immediately knew what he was going to say next. And grit my teeth against it.
“Kate, of course I’ll pay for them—no big deal.”
“No big deal,” I said cuttingly, suddenly wanting him to feel as bad as me. “Everything’s ‘no big deal’ to you, isn’t it?” He looked at me patiently, like I was a toddler pitching a fit over a dropped lollipop. “But what if it is a big deal? Because I need those glasses . . . and I’m not takin’ your money!”
“I don’t see why not,” he responded reasonably (which really chapped my hide). “After all—it’s my fault they’re broken.”
“Because I’m not, that’s why!”
I furiously pushed his hand away when he tried to hand me some fancy trail mix. Somehow, that really got under another layer of my skin—the nerve of him feeding me his dang gourmet foods, driving me around in his over-the-top vehicle, giving me $100 dollar tips. Really, who does he think I am—freakin’ Cinderella? I didn’t need or want his charity . . . in any form. Kissing me because he felt sorry for me. How dare he!
Pete sighed and rubbed at the back of his head. “Why are you being so unreasonable?” He glanced at my untouched lunch selections. “And why aren’t you eating?”
“I’m not bein’ unreasonable.” I leaned back on my hands and crossed my ankles. “. . . And I’m not hungry.”
A storm cloud darkened Pete’s face. He took a moment and a deep breath. I thought, with grim satisfaction, how much I enjoyed seeing him struggle for calm. I would love to see him lose it completely. Be a dadgum normal, feeling human being for once instead of so controlled all the time. So I tried my hand at pushing him over the edge—by pushing the plate of delicious looking cheese, fruit, and assorted crackers back at him.