“And when you woke up in the morning, you . . . you thought we did have sex,” I explained quickly. “You had looked at me and said last night shouldn’t have happened, and I wasn’t thinking about the fact we didn’t actually do it.”

Leaning back against the chair, he pulled his hands off the table and then put them right back. Silence.

Unease blossomed. “The morning just got away from me. You know why, and I left, and . . . I just . . . the whole situation got away from us—­from me. You were avoiding me. And I told myself that I needed to tell you as soon as we started talking again, but . . .” A ball formed in the back of my throat, making my voice hoarse. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you that morning. I should’ve pulled my head out of my ass and told you then. I was going to tell you last night, but it didn’t seem right to do so. But that . . . that was our first time, Reece. There was no other time before that.”

Reece slowly shook his head as he laughed again, but the laugh—­it was short and full of incredulity. “I . . . I just need to make sure I understand this correctly.”

The unease spread like a noxious weed as he shook his head one more time, closing his eyes briefly. “For the last year, you have been pissed off at me because you thought I regretted having sex with you, when in fact, we never even had sex?”

I opened my mouth, but what the hell could I say to that?

“So, you’ve ignored me. You’ve called me names.” He laughed that abrupt, abrasive laugh again. “You’ve cussed me out over what you thought I meant about an act that never even happened?”

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. “I was upset because I thought you regretted having sex with me.”

“But we didn’t have sex.”

I shook my head.

A muscle flickered along his jaw. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

I always suspected that Reece was not going to be thrilled once he learned the truth, but I still flinched.

Reece stood, walking away from the table. I had no idea where he was heading, but he stopped in the middle of the kitchen and faced me. A long, pregnant pause stretched out between us. “Do you even know how crazy I’ve been driving myself, because I couldn’t remember that night? Remember what it felt like to hold you—­to be inside you, and fall asleep and wake up with you? That after the shitty year I had, I’d topped it off by not remembering sleeping with the only girl I’ve ever cared about. Do you even understand how that fucked with my head?”

My breath hitched around the messy knot in my throat.