Page 20 of Secondhand Secrets

Her heart sank, and she wanted to be sick. “Wow… is that what Sarah told you?”

He shook his head, his earlier tension eased, while hers soared higher. “I inferred.”

“Well”—she stormed over and flipped more pancakes, once again making sure to avoid eye contact—“you inferred wrong.”

A quiet few beats passed, before Chip spoke again. “So you do have it bad for Dean Holloway?”

A small twist in his question denoted humor and filled her chest with a soft flutter, one that threatened to evolve into a giggle.

She rolled her eyes and put on a bored tone. “I did have it bad for Dean Holloway. He’s a handsome guy and was new in town. Heck, in the single most embarrassing moment of my life, I even tried to corner him at his home.” She switched off the stove and flicked her gaze to Chip, the rising heat in her cheeks prompting her to the fridge for condiments. “But I am capable of knowing when I’m not wanted.”

She lowered the jars and tubs nestled in her arms to the table and then plonked herself into a seat.

Soon, he pinned her with a hard-to-read expression, and a dull ache grew in her tummy. Seeking relief, she stabbed a fork toward the chair next to her, gesturing for him to sit too, but he drew the silence out, perhaps still grappling with her brief crush on Dean.

“Ally…”

What was with the low hurt and huskiness in his voice?

She shot him a direct stare, frustrated she even had to justify her past crushes simply because Chip Overton waltzed into town with plans to stick his annoyingly proficient tongue in her mouth. “Does the story you insisted on hearing not match your mental image of me?”

Truth be told, back in day, the months before his interstate move, there’d come a point when she suspected he liked her, that all the school yard teasing about their friendship edged on truth.

Perhaps old emotions influenced last night’s kiss. Like he had a need to see her as the same innocent Ally Egan he once knew. The same bubbly and undemanding woman everyone else in town seemed to want too.

And maybe Sarah had shared stories about Ally’s dating failures over the years, and Chip returned to Harlow with delusions of Ally just waiting around for him to claim her.

“Sarah, was supposed to be my friend.” She let out a weary sigh and reached for the strawberry spread. “She hid an entire relationship. Let me, and everyone else in town, believe she and Dean were enemies. To think back on the chats we’d had about him. I’m so sick of people thinking I don’t notice their condescension. So, no matter how you dress up Sarah’s actions, she lied, and I don’t have to forgive her.”

“Hmm…” His gaze dropped to the table. “I want to say it would be nice for you two to make up, but I see your point.”

She shrugged, nudging the jar of chocolate spread—once his favorite—toward him, his quick acceptance confirming that was still the case.

“I’m not ready to make nice with her yet.” She sawed into her pancake, the action pairing well with her mood. “So as immature and ridiculous as it probably sounds to you, this is where I’m at. I’m not the one who should be breaking the ice, and we both know Sarah well enough to know she won’t do it either. ”

He maintained more silence, a silence that signaled his disappointment at the situation more than her, while he cut into his breakfast. At least he didn’t try to persuade her to heal the rift.

And because he didn’t try to persuade her, her trust in him as a confidant grew, and she spoke again. “About last night. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Say our kiss shouldn’t have happened?” He lowered his fork, his narrow stare boring into and then raking over her. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not sorry at all.”

For all her years of thinking him a harmless friend, he didn’t seem so harmless right now. Not that she felt threatened, only his even tone stated his thoughts on the kiss as being simple and unrepentant—so contrary to her own raging emotions when she’d always been the free-spirited one.

She peered down at the table’s wood grain. “We’re friends, we always have been…”

A frown pulled at her lips. Maybe he didn’t have regrets, but she still had boundaries to assert here. “What happened last night was… weird.”

“Wow.” He lowered his utensils and leaned back in his chair. “Of all the girls I’ve ever kissed, not one called the experience weird.”

She lowered her own fork and shelved a perplexing desire to ask just how many girls he’d kissed. “You and I grew up together, and then we see each other again, and we’re suddenly kissing? That’s the weird bit. The kiss itself was great. Amazing even...”

And because he still scowled at her, she reached out and gave him a congratulatory clap on the back.

Good for you. Amazing at math. Crazy smart. Good looking… and OF COURSE you’re a perfect kisser.

Chip, a man born with a glint in his eye. Someone destined to do good and great things. Whereas she, everything about her screamed literal mediocrity, with a smattering of chaos that followed wherever she went.

“I distinctly remember you making moon eyes at me.” He leaned into the table, his unnerving stillness taking over once more. “And then you told me you wanted me to kiss you.”

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