at me in our previous interactions, the display of goodwill seems suspicious.
“Nothing.” Her voice sounds like a tire with a slow leak.
“If your being nice to me is a thank you because of what happened with Brad, you don’t need to bother. Seeing him put in his place is thanks enough.”
She wraps her arms around her middle and stares at the tip of one steel toe boot as she stubs it at the carpet. “It’s not about that. I want …” A quick exhalation of air and she raises her gaze to mine. “I want to apologize for earlier.”
“Just for earlier?”
All animation leaves her face. “Fine. For all of it. I apologize for all my rude behavior. Happy?”
I adjust myself on the sofa, trying to decide how to play this. I like seeing her squirm. In fact, she deserves to squirm because she was rude, but then again, so was I. And she’s Tiger Lyons, the girl of my teenage dreams, the one that got away. “Apology accepted.” I mimic her words from earlier.
She nods, drops into the chair opposite me, and looks completely miserable. “Thank you.”
I laugh. “You gonna be okay?”
A reluctant grin pulls at her lips. “I’m working on it.”
“That apology took a lot out of you, huh?”
A slow blink and then I’m pierced by her lapis blue stare. “You have no idea.”
“You let me know when you get yourself together.” I settle back onto the sofa with my hands behind my head and close my eyes. I’m hit in the face with a pillow as soon as my lashes lower. “Hey.” My lids jerk open to see her sitting with the most angelic expression.
“What?” Her tone is as innocent as the look on her face.
“You’re a brat.”
A very unbeauty-queen snort shoots from her mouth. “That’s what Brad always said about me.”
“Oh, damn, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. What he thinks of me no longer matters.” Her butt slides further into the cushion. “I am sorry he said that stuff about you, though.”
It’s my turn to shrug. “It’s not anything I haven’t heard before. Pretty much everyone in this town thought that about me until I started throwing a football.”
“I never felt that way.”
“Come on. I know you thought I wasn’t good enough for you.”
“That’s not true.” She crosses her arms and her legs. “You’d know how laughable that is if you knew me at all.”
What is she talking about? “So, tell me what I don’t know.”
Her gaze goes to the window, and she’s silent so long that I think she might not say anything. “I didn’t run away from you that night at homecoming because I thought I was too good for you. It was because my homemade dress fell apart when you grabbed it. I wasn’t trying to get away from you.” Her hands and her gaze drop to her lap. “In fact, leaving you right then was the last thing I wanted to do, but I was trying not to embarrass myself and my family.”
What the hell?
“I ran to the bathroom to try and repair the damage. I was going to tell you what happened, but by the time it was fixed, you’d already started that horrible rumor, and I never wanted to speak to you again.”
Everything she’s saying refuses to make sense to me. I have so many questions. Why did she wear a homemade dress? Why was she worried about embarrassing her family? And she hadn’t wanted to leave me? So of course, I ask the least important question of all. “Why would the richest girl in town wear a homemade dress?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’d be surprised what I can comprehend.”
Her shoulders lift then lower. “It was my first failed attempt at autonomy.” She chuckles, but it’s hard-coated with bitterness. “My mom wanted me to wear this ridiculously expensive dress that looked more like a Cotillion gown than something you’d wear to a high school homecoming dance. She told me it was that dress or nothing. I’d recently found my grandmother’s sewing machine in the attic and taught myself to sew. Unfortunately, that dress was a little too ambitious for my amateur skills. I knew it was hanging by a thread, but my pride wouldn’t let me accept defeat.”
I sit up with my feet on the ground, and the ice pack lands on the floor with a thunk. Tiny slivers of memories slip into place, and now it all makes sense. “You didn’t run from me.”