I would’ve given her everything if she had asked.

It would probably never be enough, and I knew I couldn’t undo everything I had done in my past. I couldn’t go back and change the fact that I’d been with all those girls, that Syd had seen me take home one girl after another, but damn, if she had asked, I would’ve told her that my feelings for her ran deep.

But I couldn’t change any of that and now Syd looked at me in the same way every single one of those girls in my classes and the ones I met at the bars did. She expected what they expected—a night of sex and nothing else. And I felt like a total shitbag for that.

Syd coughed on her beer and blinked rapidly. “Excuse me?”

I ran a hand through my hair. “Earlier in the sunroom—I shouldn’t have given in to what you were asking for.”

Her hands balled into tiny fists, and I had enough experience to be thankful she wasn’t still holding onto the beer bottle, because there was a good chance she would’ve thrown it at my head. “I was trying to avoid talking about this, since you made yourself painfully clear earlier.”

“We need to talk about this,” I said. “We need to clear the air between us. You—”

“I don’t want to, Kyler.” She stood swiftly. “I don’t see the point. I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough over the last couple of days to last a lifetime.”

I shook my head. “I’m not trying to embarrass you. That’s the last thing I want.”

“Then we don’t need to talk about it. You don’t want me. I get it.” She stared at me a moment, her lower lip trembling in a way that was a sucker punch straight to my chest, and then she turned to the curtained window. “There’s nothing else to say.”

“There’s a hell of a lot to say, Syd.” My voice hardened, and I swore to God, if she got closer to that window after what’d happened earlier, I was going to tackle her. “Why didn’t you say something before? Or did you just wake up a few days ago and decide you wanted that from me?”

She let out a strangled laugh. “Yeah, that’s how it works. I just woke up one morning and was like, ‘gee, I want to screw Kyler.’ Seriously, you have no clue.”

“Then tell me.” I sprang to my feet and crossed the room. She backed away, putting the recliner between us. “I need to know why you wanted me to do that. Why you thought that would be okay.”

She gripped the back of the recliner. Her throat worked. “You make it sound like it would be such a chore for you.”