What If You & Me (Say Everything #2) - Roni Loren Page 0,52
set up expectations. Neither of us are dating. We’re both in weird places. All true.” She wet her lips. “But when we hugged last night, I… Well, I wanted to kiss you.”
The floor seemed to tilt beneath him. So he hadn’t read her wrong. That had been a kiss-me expression. His brain gave a little fist pump. “Oh.”
She looked down, color coming into her cheeks. “I wanted to kiss you, but I freaked out at the last minute.” She glanced up, her gaze serious. “I panicked. That’s what happens when I try to get close—physically—with a guy.”
A pang went through him at her somber tone. “Did I do something to scare you?”
She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t you. I… It’s aftereffects from what I went through in my past.”
That knocked the wind out of him. Last night he’d suspected what she’d been through, but now she’d practically confirmed it. At some point in her life, she’d been abused or assaulted. God. “I’m sorry, Andi.”
She wouldn’t look at him. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t. And he needed her to hear that from him, not to have her feel so alone and vulnerable. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, but if it helps, I can tell you that I’m not unfamiliar with post-traumatic stress.” He swallowed past the dryness in his throat. “I’m dealing with that, too.”
Her attention snapped upward. “You are?”
He pointed at his prosthesis. “I lost my leg and suffered some serious burns when a building collapsed on me during a fire rescue. I get flashbacks if I hear anything that sounds like snapping wood. And I wake up from nightmares pretty often. It’s why you hear me moving around here so late at night.”
He left out the part about his crushing depression. He didn’t want her to see that side of him. Andi made him act more like his old self, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Empathy crossed her face. “I’m so sorry, Hill.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I’m dealing with it and am seeing someone about it, but I’m only telling you because I don’t want you to feel like you owe me some kind of explanation. You wanted to kiss me and then decided you weren’t comfortable doing that. That’s okay.”
She rocked back on her heels. “Would you have kissed me back? We talked about just being friends.”
The question sent a ripple of electricity through him. “I stand by wanting to be friends. But that doesn’t mean that friends don’t sometimes add benefits to that relationship.”
She held the eye contact. “So…”
He let out a breath. “Of course I would’ve kissed you back, Andi. I’d been stopping myself from kissing you all night.”
Her shoulders seemed to sag in shared relief. “I don’t know what to do with this…this attraction thing. Friends with benefits sounds like such a cliché, and I don’t even know that I won’t freak out if you did kiss me, but…”
“But what?” he asked, voice quiet, heartbeat loud.
She gave him a helpless look. “But I still want to kiss you.”
The words were so honest and raw, so familiar to him. He knew what that feeling was—wanting something but not knowing if you were capable of having it without your demons getting in the way. He fought those wars, too.
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be so complicated or defined,” he said, the words tumbling out.
“Maybe.” She wet her lips, and he found himself transfixed as she pushed away from the counter and stepped closer. “Maybe it could be two people in a weird place who could keep each other company until they find their way out of it?”
Hill swallowed hard and stepped around the island, stopping an arm’s length away from her. “I’d like that.”
He watched as Andi’s throat worked. She was nervous as hell, but there was a determined look in her eyes. She moved into his space and put her hands on his waist. “I think I can work with that.”
Hill gave in to the urge to touch her and gently cupped the back of her neck. He felt like he was holding a robin’s egg in his palm—something beautiful and special but fragile. He wanted to kiss Andi so badly he ached, but he also sensed if he made one wrong move, he’d crush the egg in his fist. He needed her to be clear. “Tell me what you’re asking for.”
Her hands were resting lightly on his hips, and her fingers twitched against him. “I need something fun and light with