Page 172 of Love, Rekindled

I pad across the small living area and rest my forearms on the counter that separates it from the kitchen. He starts unloading the bags—ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, a six-pack of beer.

“Dad’s sleeping, and Mom’s doing some spring cleaning,” he explains as he moves to put the items in my fridge. “She shooed me out of the house, and I thought we could hang.”

“Hang?” I ask skeptically. What does that even mean?

And then it dawns on me.

“Oh,” I drawl in amusement. “You want sex again?”

Rafe pops straight up, looking at me over the refrigerator door, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “You offering?”

“Um,” I reply, unsure of myself.

He grins at me. “As much as you totally rocked my world today at the pond, Poppy, I really just thought we could hang out. Get to know each other again.”

My eyebrows draw inward, and I’m more confused now than ever. I rocked his world? Really?

Why I flush with pride is beyond me, but what makes a girl feel good is what makes a girl feel good.

Rafe shuts the fridge and moves around the kitchen counter to me. He takes my hand in his, covers it with his other, and brings them to his chest, his expression somber. “I know I can’t possibly hope for you to understand what I did to you eight years ago, and I know it’s likely a lot of wishful thinking that you could forgive me completely. But right now, we reconnected, and I want to see where this goes. Today with you has been the best day since I found out about my dad. I guess I just want more of it.”

I’m drowning in his eyes and in his words. He’s saying all the right things, and yet I can’t let go of the feeling that drowning equals danger. He hurt me so badly before, and I know how easy it would be to fall for him again. I also know how quickly he could break my heart once more.

“You said you still care for me.” He references the conversation we had at the pond while sitting in her vehicle. And I realize I do. I really do. I meant that.

“I’m scared, Rafe,” I finally admit to him. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand what you did to me by leaving me behind without any explanation. Yes, you crushed me, but you also killed my self-esteem because I didn’t know what I did wrong.”

“You did nothing wrong,” he assures me.

I nod. “Yes, you said that, and I believe you. But that doesn’t negate all the work I had to do to build myself back up. I’m never going to put myself in a position again to be hurt like that. And, well...if you did it to me once, you could do it again.”

Rafe’s face crumples, not because I’m denying him something but because he feels like shit. I know him so well. I know when he feels awful about something, and I can tell he truly does. Making him feel bad wasn’t my intent, but it’s a bit of a balm to me right now that I think maybe he at least understands.

“But…” I continue because while he scares the shit out of me with the potential for more heartbreak, I can’t deny that I’m happy to have him back in my life. I may have rocked his world at the pond today, but he turned mine upside down and inside out. I’m feeling all kinds of trampy right now that I want him again. “Maybe we can put some boundaries in place to help me feel a bit safer with you.”

Rafe frowns, the implication heavy that he’s a danger to me. “Like what?”

“We make it about sex only,” I say with a slight shrug.

“Sex only, huh?”

“Well, yeah. I mean...that was pretty great at the pond, right? And it took your mind off your troubles. And I totally enjoyed the hell out of it, so we can have a sex-only relationship.”

Rafe takes a step back and withdraws his hand from mine. “Yeah...that’s not going to work for me.”

I blink at him in surprise. “Why ever not?”

He scrubs a hand over his face in frustration and sighs. “Because I need your friendship, too, Poppy. You’ve helped me so much already with dealing with my dad. I mean, if I have to choose between friendship and sex, I would choose…and I feel like a total girl saying this, the friendship.”

My lips quirk upward as my head tilts. “Well, of course, we can be friends, too. You know I love your dad, and I’m always going to be here to support him, you, and your mother. You have that.”

Rafe’s expression turns contemplative for a moment, his eyes shadowing skeptically. “So, let me get this straight... We’re friends again, and we can have no-strings sex?”

“Friends with benefits,” I reply with a brilliant smile. “It’s a win-win situation for us both.”

Rafe chuckles and shakes his head. He peers down at me, and for a moment, I think he might kiss me. Instead, he pivots to walk back into the kitchen. “You’re a strange one, Calliope Ramirez. I guess it’s why I adore you so much.”

“You can’t say things like that,” I point out as he opens the refrigerator and pulls out two bottles of beer.

---