Boy, didn’t I know that. I took a sip of my beer. I knew there was very little I could say that would make a huge difference, but I said what I thought was true. “You are not a bad person, Reece. What you had to do was hard and he was a kid, but—­”

“But it happened, babe. It was something that I had to deal with—­still dealing with, so I know it when I see it.”

I tensed.

“I see it when I talk to Henry. And I see it in you, but Roxy, you’ve got no ownership to that. You understand that?”

I nodded, mainly because it was hard to explain why I felt such guilt over Charlie. “I’m glad you talked to me about what happened,” I said after a ­couple of moments. “I know it’s not easy to talk about.”

“It’s not. So you know that door is two-­way, right?”

I raised my brows.

“I know there’s stuff you’ve got that isn’t easy to talk about, but you need to try, and when you do, I’ll be here.” He pulled his feet off the railing and stood. “Want another beer?”

Blinking, I glanced down at my almost empty beer. “Sure.”

As he moved to go back inside, he stopped beside me and curled his fingers under my chin. Tilting my head back, he dipped down and kissed me like he had all the time in the world. Slowly at first, just a brushing of his mouth against mine, and then deeper, parting my lips with his tongue. It wasn’t just a kiss. Not when his tongue danced over mine or the way he tasted me. Reece turned kissing into an art form, and if I had to attach a color to it, to get it on canvas, it would be supple shades of reds and purples.

I was still dazed from the kiss when Reece returned with more beer. We ended up talking into the wee hours of the morning, sometimes about nothing important, and after about the third beer, the conversation got a little more serious. I might have admitted to locking my younger brother in a chest once. Then I admitted that I hated taking the design classes in college. “The guys are freaking snots to deal with,” I told him. “Like you need a dick to know code or work in design, when in reality, any thirteen-­year-­old with a computer can design a decent website.”

Reece frowned over at me. “Then why do you do it? It’s a serious question.”

I shrugged. “I should get a degree.”

“You should do what you want.”

“It is what I want.”

He snorted. “Whatever.”