Page 90 of Right Number, Wrong Man
“Please, don’t apologize. I’m the onewho’s sorry,” I interrupt. “I should’ve been honest with you. Maybe if you knew the truth about my brother, you would’ve been spared?—”
I can’t bring myself to continue or it’ll all come spilling out. Halloween. Jax. Everything.
The irony of my words ain’t lost on me, either. Just like back in the old days, I’m caught in a mess of lies when all I ever wanted was to be honest. I’m paving my road to purgatory with the best of intentions, but they’re still gonna lead me to burn for my sins.
I deserve it.
Hailey shakes her head. “I knew Mike was trouble. The fights in the schoolyard, the drugs, the drinking. His bad boy image was part of the appeal, as lame as that sounds. Nobody made me get married at nineteen, either. It was a dumb decision, but it was mine.”
The corners of her lips tug upward and I feel a little lighter.
“What I’m saying is that I hear you, Colt. You didn’t want Mike to get expelled from school and you meant well. What I’ve done is so much worse.”
My chest squeezes. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You were the victim.”
She twists her fingers, eyes on the blanket. “Because of the prank, I judged you so quickly as a bully. I felt… vindicated. To me, it seemed like you finally proved my point after ignoring me for years.”
I let out a wry laugh.Yeah, I ignored you cause I was so in love with you at first sight, I couldn’t get a word out. And when I worked up the courage, you had already fallen for my brother.
Hailey presses her hands against her cheeks, using her hair to hide her face. “I wrapped myself in that stubborn prejudice and never gave you a chance to explain. You became my worst enemy. God, I didn’t try to talk to youabout the prank once—not even when we were grown up. I punished you for something you didn’t do when all it would’ve taken was one honest conversation to clear the air.”
The world spins. Am I dreaming?
She looks up and her amber eyes meet mine, crinkling with a gentle smile. “I got so comfortable stewing in my hatred for you, I couldn’t imagine myself without it. I kept arguing with you about the stupidest things because our fights gave me reasons to keep hating you. Since you told me the truth, all this stuff has been going through my head. That’s why I avoided you at work. I just wasn’t ready to confront my feelings and the results of my actions, but now I am.”
I blink dumbly at her.
“Bottom line: I was a gigantic asshole and I’m sorry, Colton. It’s okay if you won’t accept my apology, but I had to try.”
“You’re right. I can’t accept your apology…” I say and Hailey’s face falls. Cursing myself, I quickly add, “Cause I never held any of it against you. And clearing the air wasn’t just your responsibility. I could’ve started that conversation, too.”
But I couldn’t cause if I did, I would’ve had to take you from Mike. I had to let you hate me cause it was the one way I could let you live your life freely.
“Does that mean we can bury the past and start over?” she asks, offering her hand to shake.
A flutter spreads through my gut. I’ve dreamed about a do-over so many times, I’m tempted to pinch myself—and worried if I do, I’ll wake up all alone in a bed halfway across the world with Hailey still considering me enemy number one.
My hand trembles when I reach out and her fingerstighten against mine, slipping in the spaces between. Fuck me, they’re a perfect fit, like lost pieces of a puzzle.
I force calm into my voice when I say, “I’d love that.”
“Me, too,” she whispers.
Easy as five words, we put the bad blood behind us. It feels wonderfully anticlimactic to end our lifelong feud in the shade of rustling trees, our voices carried by the summer breeze and our shaking hands entwined.
She smiles. “Friends?”
I nod, fighting down the desire burning me up from inside. I don’t wanna be friends, I want to celebrate this new beginning with our very first kiss. But that ain’t what she’s looking for, ain’t what she needs.
She needs a friend, not a scumbag who takes advantage of her emotionally vulnerable state.
My heart turns to ice when I let her hand go and she quickly brushes some hair behind her ear.
I reach into the picnic basket, searching for the bottle of wine I packed at home. “How ‘bout a toast to?—”
The bushes rustle and Hailey freezes. “Shit, it’s a bear!” she whispers, panicked. “We finally made up and now we’ll get eaten by a wild animal. That’s so typical!”
“These bushes are a bit small for a bear.”
