“After the third degree? Really?” Her voice was dry. “I’m sure she would’ve felt so welcome.” She looked back at me. “Please come. Grant will have his head out of his ass by then.” She nodded, turned, and went back out the way she’d come.

Grant waited until the cafeteria door closed behind her, and his gaze swung back to me.

There was no apology in his eyes, though. He just seemed haunted, with an edge of anger, and his tone reflected both. “With all due respect to their opinions, they don’t know you like I do.”

Fuck. I looked away. I knew in that second that this was going to hurt. He wasn’t coming at me in a disapproving way for my ethics. He was taking a personal angle.

Shit, shit, shit.

It had killed me to expose myself as much as I did with Reese the night before, and now here? With Grant? I wasn’t sure I had the strength to hear this out, whatever he was going to send my way. Though, maybe I did deserve it?

He started low, quiet. “You were my best friend. Like, the bestest friend I’ve ever had. And yeah, I knew that kiss was a mistake. I knew it was going to scare you away, but I had to still try. I backed off after. I did.”

I frowned. Why was he bringing this up? “The kiss?”

“Our kiss.”

“Why are you…” I trailed off.

He jumped in, more insistent, “I knew I scared you away with that kiss. I don’t want it to happen again, where you get with a guy, he hurts you, and we lose you all over again. I did it with our kiss, and then we completely lost you for years to Damian. And now I know things ended with you two, and you were still too scared to come to me. I…” He ground to a halt.

My eyes were wide. I could barely breathe. “Are you serious?”

His eyebrows bunched together. “I scared you away. It’s because of me that you even started dating Damian.”

He blamed—what? No. He couldn’t, but he did. I saw it then.

He blamed himself for Damian, and for...I wasn’t even sure what else.

I shook my head. “No. No! You didn’t scare me away. That’s not what happened.”

His frown deepened. “It’s not?”

“No! Not at all.”

Oh boy. I would have to slide that door open once more and feel the Damian effects again. It was going to crush me, but he needed it. This wasn’t my coworker in front of me, but a best friend I’d abandoned, and it was on me to make this right.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he asked.