but it was hard not to take it personally.
“Then, I’ll be your first.”
There was so much more to Mac, lurking under the surface, and I had no idea what I’d find if I kept digging.
“Why? Why do you push so hard, Sunny? What are you fighting for?”
“You, you big dummy!” I practically shouted. “I’m fighting for you. Because I like you. I want to be with you. I can’t pretend like that phone call last summer didn’t happen. I’ve thought about it a hundred times. You opened the door that night, and now, I want all the way in.” I confessed way more than I’d meant to. “Ugh, why do you make me say these things to you?”
I felt so stupid, laying my emotional truth out in the open for him to see, judge, and analyze. Giving a guy like Mac my heart was possibly a bad idea, but right now, I couldn’t seem to stop myself. This would either be the biggest mistake of my life or the best thing I’d ever done with it. Love was always worth the risk, and I’d played it safe for too long, always selling myself short and taking less than I deserved.
The only way to get through Mac’s walls was to break them down. And I held the fucking jackhammer.
“I don’t know how you do it,” he breathed out. “You’re so honest. You always say exactly how you feel.”
“That’s not true,” I countered because it wasn’t. “Not always.”
“I’m a mess.” He sat down on the ground and put his head in his hands, pulling at the strands of his hair before looking up at me. “I come from a fucked up family. I have some serious issues I’m still trying to work through. You don’t want to get involved with me.”
I sat down and faced him, our knees barely touching. “Everyone has issues, and no one’s family is perfect. No matter how hard they try to pretend otherwise. At some point in your life, you have to let someone in.”
“I did once.” I knew Mac meant his ex-girlfriend, and I stopped myself from asking a million questions about exactly what had happened between them even though I was dying to know. “Didn’t work out so well that time.”
“Sometimes, we choose people who are bad for us. But that’s usually where we learn the most.”
“I didn’t want to learn all that.” He sounded so sad.
The night had taken such a drastic turn, and I had no idea how to get us back on track.
“Come home with me,” I blurted out, and he looked right through me, saying nothing while he slowly shook his head. I pulled out the big guns. “I’ll bake for you.”
“Salty cookies?” His eyes lit up while the rest of him looked so defeated.
He was a sitting contradiction, and I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to help him, to make him feel better, even if it was short-lived.
“Anything you want,” I said with a smile because I meant it.
If Mac wanted me to bake him fifteen different types of cookies tonight, I’d do it for him.
He pushed up from the ground, and his hand reached for mine, lifting me up with little effort. “Lead the way.”
Can’t Say No to Her
Mac
I
should have stuck to my guns when I first said no to her. I should have stood up, told Sunny good night, and walked back into the baseball house and away from all of her beautiful goodness. But I couldn’t do it. The offer of baked goods was just a bonus, one that had pushed me over the proverbial edge. I would have gone with her anyway, even without the cookies.
I was beginning to think that I’d follow Sunny Jamison anywhere she wanted me to. And that was a dangerous line for me to cross, giving in to someone who could crush me without trying. The craziest part in my mind was that she clearly had no idea how I felt about her. Not that I blamed her necessarily, considering the fact that I was more up and down than a fucking amusement park ride.
Telling her that I didn’t want Hayley the devil had been one thing. Telling Sunny that I wanted to work through all of my issues and try to be a normal human being with her was another. I wasn’t sure I could do it. Like, I wasn’t sure I was emotionally capable of handling it. And the last thing on earth I wanted to do again was