Page 70 of The Apple Tree

His hand flopped to his side. “Oh, you do, huh? And why is that?”

I twisted my lips for a few seconds. “Since I’m still living at home, he has a tendency to treat me like a child. So I don’t think he’d be okay with us yet.”

Ever.

My dad was never going to be okay with me dating a man ten years older than me.

“So we agree that things are murky, a little gray. And perhaps telling anyone, and I meananyone,isn’t a good idea right now.”

I frowned. “What do you expect me to do? I can’t exactly un-tell Erin.”

He turned and marched toward the house, seemingly a little miffed at me. “I’m twenty-eight, Eve. I have a son, a house, and a job. I don’t need you getting condoms for me. I’m a big boy. I can walk into a store and buy them myself. No shame. No big deal.”

“You’re mad,” I said, following him.

“Yes. I’m mad. I don’t need my colleagues finding out that I’ve been messing around with one of their recent graduates. I don’t need my brother discovering that I tried to screw his best friend’s daughter less than a month after moving next door.”

“So we’re just going to be secret lovers?”

Kyle’s stride died, and I stopped to keep a safe distance.

He shook his head and chuckled. “Listen, I’m attracted to you. You elevate the mood of every room you walk into because you have alivelypersonality. I feel ten years younger when I’m with you. But I just bought a house and started a new job. I’m responsible for another life. I don’t want to get shamed out of town right now. So I don’t know if we’reloversor what we are. I just know it’s way too early to put a label on it, which means it’s also too early to risk tellinganyone. So no, let’s not be secret lovers. Let’s be adults with a little discretion.”

I opened my mouth to argue but quickly clamped it shut, fearing my reaction might sound too childish.

He waited with his back to me for a long moment before continuing to the house. “I’m impressed,” he said.

“Why?”

“I expected you to go off about something.”

“Well, I’m impressive, not childish.”

He chuckled.

The cat was out of the bag with Erin, and Grandma Bonnie, but that was neither here nor there. So it had to be okay to talk to them since they knew. If I’d had it to do over … yeah, who was I kidding? I totally would have told Erin and Grandma.

Guys came and went. They inflated hearts and broke them. Best friends and awesome grandmas picked up the pieces and mended them. Guys were givers and takers, but best friends shared everything. They made everything real.

“I’m going to head into your house instead of following you to the barn,” I said, stopping by the front porch stairs.

Kyle turned. “Why?”

“I think you should work a little harder for it.”

His tongue made a lazy swipe along his lower lip, and he nodded. “And byit,you mean you?”

“Yes.”

He beamed with amusement. “Okay.” After several steps, he looked back at me. In the next breath, he continued toward the barn.

My heart felt tortured. Self-torture, of course. But I needed to stop dropping to my knees, even if everything he did made them weak.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

BERLIN, “TAKE MY BREATH AWAY”

Eve

---