Catie went to part her lips on a snapped response… and realized she was doing it again. Treating Danny like he was “other” instead of one of her own people. She didn’t know why she reacted so defensively with him, especially when she knew that, to him, she’d always been just Catie. Not Catie the Poor Disabled Girl, or Catie the Inspiration, or even Catie the Paralympian.

To him she was Catie who liked makeup too much and always stole all the maple syrup on the table. “I did not go all Godzilla,” she muttered instead of apologizing. Even accepting that she was being churlish, she couldn’t make herself say the words.

“You still don’t have a coat.” Hands on his hips, he glared at her. “I’m not going to donate my jacket if you start to freeze off your bits.”

Stomping into her bedroom because he was right, she grabbed her big pink coat with its splotches of golden glitter on the bottom half. You’d think it was designer, but she’d found the coat at a recycle boutique for twenty-five dollars, then splotched it herself. She loved it to pieces and it went with everything.

Danny opened the door for her, then pulled it shut behind them.

Catie fought with herself on the walk to the elevator, finally blurting out, “Sorry. Wasn’t Godzilla, but might’ve been a smaller monster.”

His lips kicked up, and boom, there went her heart all over again. “Let me guess—a mini dragon?”

“Ha ha.” But she felt better now that she’d apologized. Ísa had brought her up better than to be an ass to someone who wasn’t being an ass to her. Catie knew full well she had a chip on her shoulder due to many and myriad reasons, but that didn’t mean she had to take the chip and beat defenseless people over the head with it.

The thing was, she almost never got snippy with even the most clueless people or those who misspoke. She didn’t expect the world to understand her reality when she might be the first double amputee they’d ever met. Innocent cluelessness she could forgive, particularly if the person was open to being corrected if they’d made an error.

Generally, the only people at risk of coming face-to-face with her dark side were the assholes.

Tonight, however, she was going out with a certified non-asshole. And that, she admitted, was part of the reason she’d jumped down his throat. Because she was freaked out at how well they worked together, how easy it was to be his fake girlfriend.

“Ready to paint the town red?” Danny asked inside the elevator before drawing his eyebrows together in an ominous scowl. “The same red you painted my face while I was sleeping that time.”