Page 10 of Reeve

“Aaron,” I whisper. “What are you—”

“Please,” he begs me.

Please…what?I tilt my head to the side, my eyes locked with his.

“Stop hating me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I can’t hate you back,” he says, wincing like the words hurt. “I wish I could. I want to. I’ve tried to.” He clenches his jaw, then lets it relax. “But I can’t. So, please…can we be friends?”

“I don’t have a lot of friends,” I confess, shrugging weakly. “There aren’t that many people in Skagway. Friends are important to me, so I don’t know if I can just—”

“Fine,” he says. “Then can we just have peace?”

I stare up at him, considering this request. I’ve hated Aaron for years—it’s become rote…but is it mytruth? It’s easy to hate him because I was so embarrassed by what happened between us. And yes, I know it was partially my fault—I shouldn’t have been flirting with a grown man when I was seventeen. But he shouldn’t have been flirting with me, either—he shouldn’t have made assumptions about my age just because of the uniform I was wearing.

We were both at fault, I guess, but Aaron backedsofar away from me—and treated me like such a child whenever possible—it made everything worse. I felt like a disease…and a toddler. A diseased toddler. And there’s no seventeen- or eighteen-year-old on the face of the earth who wants to be treated like a diseased toddler by a hot cop only four years older.

Remembering all of this makes me uncertain about whether I can genuinely extend an olive branch.

“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I just think—”

“Reeve, I’m not sorry I ignored you when I found out you were only seventeen. I’m not going to apologize for that.”

The nerve!“Huh! Well, if you’re trying to make amends with me, you’re doing a really shit job of—”

“But I amverysorry,” he interrupts, his voice louder, firmer and far less flustered than mine, “that I didn’t text you the day you turned eighteen.”

My lips are parted like I’m going to keep yelling at him, but what he says silences me. It’s what I’ve been longing to hear for three long years. That hewasreally and truly interested in me, and that he’s sorry he messed up his chance to ask me out.

“Why didn’t you?”

He takes another deep breath and sighs. “At the time, I knew Joe was going through something difficult with Harper…and your brothers didn’t exactly look like they’d welcome a suitor for their little sister—”

“You’re afraid of my brothers?”

He stands up, crossing his arms over his chest. I let my eyes slide down to follow the sinew of muscles in his forearms.Wow, wow, wow.

“I’m notafraidof them,” he says softly.

“Then…?”

“The whole thing felt—if you’ll forgive me—too fucked up by then.” He shrugs. “I hoped…I guess I just thought it’d be better if I got over you.”

I process his words, my eyes glued to his.

“And…did you?”

He shakes his head slowly, his lips pursing with annoyance. “No.”

“So, when you say you want us to be friends…”

“It’s not a lie, per se.” He breaks off eye contact with me. “Maybe it isn’texactlywhat I want…but it’d be a hell of a lot better than you hating me so much.”

I lean forward again, tenting my hands on the table like we’re negotiating a trade agreement.

“Aaron…what do you want?”

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