Page 81 of Perfect Pairing
I shrugged. “He does. He kissed me at the winery after my date with Douchebag Damian in September and almost did again last night. God, I wanted to give in so bad. I miss him more than I’d like to admit. Before, I wasn’t sure I could trust him—”
“Wait,” Chloe said, holding up a hand. “Back up. What happened at the winery?”
I stilled, stunned into silence. Surely I’d told them about that.
Hadn’t I?
Then again, I’d been so wrapped up in other things that maybe I’d…forgotten?
Delia crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Spill, Bee.”
I gave them all a sheepish grin and said, “So, you guys obviously remember my date with Damian.”
“Yeah. That guy was an asshat. We really should’ve seen it coming from a mile away,” Ella said, and I couldn’t help but chuckle as my other sisters nodded in agreement. Ella rarely got worked up about anything but, like the rest of us, she was fiercelyprotective when any of us was threatened. And while I personally thought Damian was harmless—after all, he’d held true to his word and not given his trip to Apple Blossom Bay a single second of video time on his social accounts, not even in an attempt to give me and the town bad publicity—my sisters weren’t as forgiving. In fact, Delia had prepared a smear campaign, ready to launch like the nuclear codes if he ever decided to go scorched earth.
“What I didn’t tell you was that Ezra went full on jealous asshole,” I said, wincing when my sisters gasped. I didn’t want to examine too closely why I hadn’t shared this part of that evening with them. Probably because I hadn’t thought it mattered.
Now, though…well, it was like Ezra had said the night before. Everything had changed.
“What happened?” Chloe asked.
I quickly explained the events of the evening. Damian’s condescending comments and entire air of superiority. The steak he ordered and sent back when it wasn’t cooked right, despite being prepared exactly how he’d ordered it. How Ezra came out and confronted him, agreeing to cook him a new one, and then bringing out that blackened hunk of meat.
I couldn’t help the laugh that burst from my mouth at remembering Damian’s face when Ezra dropped that ribeye on his plate, acrid smoke rising off its surface and scenting the air around us.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a man that angry,” I chuckled. “I truly thought Damian was going to have an aneurysm with the way the vein in his forehead pulsed.”
“So what’d youdo?”
“I finally told Damian who I was and kicked him out. He spewed some hateful things as he left, but I wasn’t bothered. From the moment he’d picked me up, I’d known I wouldn’t see or speak to him again.”
I didn’t have much dating experience, but I knew how I deserved to be treated, and Damian’s behavior wasn’t it.
That and…he wasn’t Ezra.
“Anyway,” I said, waving a hand. “The point is, after Damian left, I pulled Ezra back to the offices, intent on chewing him a new ass for causing a scene like that, and he kissed me.”
“Was it hot?” Delia asked.
I tried to play it cool, but I could feel the blissed-out smile that played on my lips and the heat rising to my cheeks as I remembered that too brief moment. My toes curled against the couch with the memory of how my entire body came to life under his touch.
The physical connection between us had never been the problem, and I said as much to my sisters.
“I don’t see the problem,” Amara said. “That’s half the battle.”
I narrowed my gaze and pursed my lips at her. “Says the girl who hated her now-boyfriend and future baby daddy.”
Amara rolled her eyes. “I never hated him.”
“Bullshit,” Delia proclaimed. “You hated him for years. But it’s a fine line between love and hate, and you two ended up on the right side eventually.”
“The point is,” I said, pulling my sisters back to the matter at hand—me, “I told him never to kiss me again. Thanks to the event tonight, we’ve been spending some time together. Before, I wanted him to stay far away from me. It was too painful, andafter he’d been so callous that morning he left my apartment, I couldn’t handle that sort of disappointment again. But now…”
“But now, what?” Amara asked. “Has he ever been anything but completely honest with you? Even though he hurt you, has he ever lied?”
“I mean, no…” I lifted my hand to my mouth and chewed on the skin around my thumbnail nervously. “Actually, I was the one who wasn’t truthful. I kept a huge secret from him—you guys too.”
My sisters quieted but stared at me expectantly. They were wholly unprepared for the bomb I was about to drop, but now that Ezra knew, it was time they did too.
