My Cone and Only (King Family #1) - Susannah Nix Page 0,45

crossing with me. The best way to keep it from happening again was to keep my distance. If he had anything else to say, he could come and find me.

Apparently he didn’t have anything to say, because he still hadn’t sought me out thirty minutes later when I finished clearing out the weeds. Fine. Two could play that game. It didn’t bother me.

Except here I was, totally fucking bothered.

Angrily, I gathered up all the weeds to tie them into a bundle. The sky had clouded over while I’d been working, which had cooled things off a little. But the humidity was so thick it made it hard to breathe. I felt like my lungs weren’t getting enough oxygen.

I was so intent on the work, I didn’t notice Wyatt had approached until I turned around and nearly walked right into him. “Shit,” I muttered, jumping back.

“Sorry.” He held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

As we eyed each other I took some petty pleasure in the fact that he looked like crap. Unhappy lines creased his face as he shuffled his feet in front of me. He had the strained look of someone fighting a hangover and the bleary, hollowed eyes of sleeplessness.

Although, for all I knew it was because he’d had such a great time last night and partied too hard with whatever woman he’d chosen over me. A fresh pulse of anger rose in my blood, and I dodged around him to walk away.

“Andie, wait.” His hand caught me by the arm, setting off sparks of longing everywhere his fingers touched my skin. “We should probably talk about last night.”

I didn’t look at him, but I didn’t pull out of his grasp either. I couldn’t make myself do it. I craved his touch too much. “What’s to talk about? You made your position perfectly clear.”

He dropped his hand, leaving a prickly impression behind on my arm. “You’re mad.”

“No shit.” A drop of rain hit my face, and I looked up at the sky. The clouds overhead were dark and threatening, matching my mood.

“I meant it when I said I cared about you.”

“Great.” It shouldn’t feel like a consolation prize, but it did.

“I’m really sorry about what happened.”

I rounded on him, and my stomach churned when he shrank back from me. “Which part? The part where you kissed me, the part where you tried to take it back, or the part where you walked out right afterward to spend the night with another woman?”

“All of it. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You don’t have to mean it to do it.” Another raindrop hit my arm, sending a cold shiver over the back of my neck, and I reached down to wipe it away.

“I don’t want to lose you over this.” The catch in his voice made me look up at him.

His expression was so anguished it drained most of the anger out of me. Fighting with him wouldn’t change anything. It couldn’t make him want me the way I wanted him. I was hurt and sad and tired of feeling that way, but I didn’t want to lose his friendship either.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him. “Are you?”

“No.”

Even though I was still smarting from his rejection, I believed him. I believed that he cared about me and wanted to stay friends. That was all he’d ever be able to offer me, but it wasn’t nothing. It was more than most people ever got of Wyatt King.

“Fine,” I said. “All the same, it’s probably best if we give each other a little extra space for a while.”

His hangdog look got a little more hangdog, but he didn’t argue. “I can keep working on the house though, right?”

The raindrops were falling with more urgency now, peppering my arms and face as I nodded. “I hope so. I can’t do it without you.”

“You don’t have to. I promised I’d take care of it and I will.” He wiped the rain off his face and glanced up at the sky.

My eyes followed his, and I frowned at the storm cloud overhead.

Wyatt looked back down at me and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything the skies opened up and unleashed a deluge on our heads.

11

Wyatt

Andie and I made a run for the back porch when the skies opened up. Once we were under cover, I turned and looked out at the yard, wiping the water off my face. The rain was pouring down in buckets, pockmarking the ground and