Looking down, I shook my head at her. And here she liked to claim that anything that had to do with sex sold me on an idea. We’re not so different, Kiera. You want me too. And you missed me too. Wanting her to feel better about me teasing her earlier, I looked up at her. She was looking back at me with love and interest on her face.

My grin grew playful as she pulled me forward. “I know my trick was a little mean, but it did prove one very important thing.”

She moved to walk beside me, looping her arm around mine. “Besides the fact that you haven’t changed…that you’re still a prick?” she asked, amusement in her voice.

With a laugh, I nodded. “Yes, aside from that.” There was so much adoration on her face as she stared up at me, it again made me worry that I’d fallen asleep on that plane somehow…that this was all a fantasy. Shaking my head, I whispered, “You really did miss me.” I’d meant to say it lighthearted and playful, but instead it had come out as…wonder. And that was exactly how I felt—wonderous.

How is this my life? Someone had missed me. Someone had cried for me. Because I hadn’t been there. Mind-boggling.

Kiera stopped us. She just stared at me for a moment. The disbelief was so thick in her eyes, I had to swallow the ball of emotion forming in my throat. Somehow me trying to make light of my assholishness had morphed into me cutting open my heart, and now I was beginning to hemorrhage.

Shaking her head, she placed a hand on my cheek. “Of course I missed you. I missed you every day, every hour…practically every second.”

I gave her a soft smile, then looked away. I shouldn’t have let that moment get so serious. Did it make it sound like I’d doubted her? Or did it just make me sound pathetic? “Yeah, I saw that,” I told her. Remembering seeing her grief for me made a swell of something dark and painful stir within me, something I thought I’d shoved down farther than I had, something I wished I could rip out of my body and be done with forever: a bitter blend of loneliness, sorrow, fear, and desperation. My voice was thick with the resurfaced emotions when I spoke again. “I just…No one’s ever missed me before…” No one ever cared enough to miss me before.