Page 44 of Stirring Up Love
“Says who?” Simone asked, looking dazed and drunk and decadent.
“It’s just ... we can’t ...” At this exact moment, the reason escaped him, but ... “I’m not supposed to kiss you.”
Her eyes flew wide. “Excuse me, what? Do you have a girlfriend, Finn Rimes? Oh, gosh. Don’t tell me you’re married.”
“No! Neither,” he said, and she collapsed back against the seat, still looking thunderous.
“I just ...” It was hard to speak around the foot wedged in his mouth. “That came out wrong. I just promised my friend I wouldn’t ...” Worse. “I mean, we’re supposed to be keeping this platonic. For the, uh, the business. The deal.” Nail, meet coffin.
“Let me guess, your friend says I’m a dangerous wild card, and you should watch your back around me.”
“Not exactly.” Darius had said Finn was gullible, and naive, and, okay, yes, that Simone might take advantage of him. Which she hadn’t. “He knows I have a history of trusting the wrong people.”
“Wow. Holy crap, wow.” Simone cranked the keys, and the convertible rumbled to life. “You are absolutely unbelievable.”
“Simone ...”
She slammed the car into gear and accelerated out of the parking lot. “I opened up to you, shared really personal stuff, and somehow I’m still the enemy?”
“You’ve never been the enemy. But you gotta admit you haven’t always been the kindest to me, and maybe jumping straight from arguing to making out is skipping a few steps.”
“And you’ve been a saint?” she asked. “You quoted my restaurant’s worst review in front of the entire country.”
“You tried to run me out of town!”
“Forgive me for being a little distrustful of someone who showed up in my town and tried to steal my business,” she said. “Or don’t. I couldn’t care less what you do.”
“Yourtown? You see, that’s it right there.” Vindication tasted sour, but sometimes the truth was bitter. “You don’t own Hawksburg, Simone. You think the world revolves around you.”
“Nothing revolves around me, don’t you get it?” She slammed on the brakes at a stop sign, and Finn put a hand to the dashboard to avoid having his brains smashed on it.
“The restaurant wasn’t even meant for me. My grandpa gave Honey and Hickory to my sister. In front of the whole town. A big fancy ceremonious passing of the torch. There’s even a video, if you’d care to see.” She glared at him, daring him to speak. “But turns out she didn’t want it. So she pawned it off on me. I’m a friggin’ afterthought, and I could probably just hand over the whole business to you and no one would care.”
The air punched out of his lungs. Twice now he’d hurt her. Twice now he’d jumped to conclusions. Wrong conclusions.Hurtfulconclusions.
“When you showed up at the farmers’ market, I panicked,” she said, hands trembling on the wheel. “I was set on proving myself, and selling sauce was supposed to be the beginning of showing I was the right person to run Honey and Hickory. Instead, you came to town and implied I had nothing to do with the sauce we were selling. So yeah, Ilashed out. But you went onThe Executivesto try to steal my chance at a future, so you can get the heck off your high horse.”
“For the last time, I didn’t know you’d be there.” A half truth. He had known she’d be there, just not at the same time as him. He hadn’t meant to face off with her, but he had gone on to prove his sauce was better. To provehewas better. He hung his head.
“Maybe not, but you can see why I might be hesitant to trust a man who says he wants to kiss me in one breath and in the next calls me an entitled brat.” Put like that, he was an absolute heel. “We’ve both done some shady stuff, but I’m done being the bad guy in your story. I am not the asshole here.”
He forced himself to meet her eyes. “You’re right.” He’d been wrong to justify his feelings of inadequacy by making her out to be a villain.
“Yeah? Because ten seconds ago you were calling me a bad idea.”
“Not you.” God, he’d hurt her. “The kiss.”
“Well, you were right about that. The kiss was a freaking terrible idea. But not because I’m a jerk. Becauseyou’rea jerk.” She pulled away from the stop sign, eyes ahead, shoulders stiff.
He sure was acting like one. And he couldn’t take back his words, but he’d made her feel attacked after sharing a piece of herself. The least he could do would be to reciprocate, even if sharing left him hollow and vulnerable. Especially then. “I’m sorry, Simone. I really am. I’ve been all up in my head, blaming you for my own issues.”
“You think?”
She wasn’t going to make this easy on him. Not that he deserved easy. He raked a hand through his hair, blew out a ragged breath. “I’ve been through some stuff. I’ve worked on it. Am working on it, but it still comes up sometimes.” More so lately, he realized. Making a go of the sauce business, fighting for his dream. All of it dredged up his insecurities. “I wasn’t lying earlier when I said I wasn’t adopted. But I ...” It shouldn’t be so hard to tell people this thing about him. Shouldn’tmake him feel nonhuman. But it did. “I grew up in and out of foster care. And in the end, I aged out of the system.”
Aged out of the system.Made him sound like a felon, or an experiment. A test subject at the intersection of bureaucracy and family life.
He clenched his jaw against memories of the couch at his aunt’s house and a scratchy wool blanket, a blaring TV. Of unfamiliar beds in silent rooms. Of bunks and the sound of crying. Of shouting at midnight and stillness at midday. Of lying awake staring at blank walls or, worse, dressers covered with snapshots of other children.
