A genuine smile crossed her lips and reached her eyes. “You’re just letting your guard down. Showing me your heart. That’s not change, that’s courage. And something tells me you’re a man not lacking in that department.”

She sighed, and I had a feeling the alcohol was pulling her thoughts out more easily than they’d come without it.

I returned my hands to her hips. “Well, I never wanted to lower it before, but no one else has ever made me want to put it up so damn high, either.”

“Quite the conundrum.” She lifted her brows. “I have a proposition to make, then.”

“This a bourbon-induced one?” The side of my mouth hiked up into a half-smile.

She hiccuped. “One or two more minutes and it will be.”

“Then you better hurry so we can close this deal.” The fact she’d managed to turn my mood around and had me smiling so damn fast was telling in itself. She did bring out a better side of me, a side I’d probably only ever let her and Colin see.

“Well,” she began, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, eyes lowered between us, “seeing as I want to push you away so I don’t get my hopes up about us, and from the sounds of it, you’re suffering from the same problem . . . what if, and hear me out, our pushiness cancels each other out?” She let go of her shirt and looked up at me. “That made more sense in my head than how it sounded out loud.”

“Agree not to push each other away. Is that what you’re proposing?”

She pointed at the Apple watch on my wrist. “Mm-hmm. And you better hurry,” she said with a laugh, followed by another hiccup, “because Daddy’s bourbon is doing its thing.”

I laughed. Fuck me, I laughed at the Southern twang lacing her words. “Did you just drop a ‘daddy’ on me?”

Her cheeks flushed, and she laughed back. And fuck me twice, that sound alone could make angels sing and rejoice.

“I did just go Kentucky on you, didn’t I?”

“That you did, ma’am.” I stepped back, hoping she could keep her balance, and extended my hand. “You have yourself a deal.”

And just like that, this woman single-handedly made me forget about every last demon and skeleton in my closet. That handshake, bourbon-based or not, launched me into my own personal high.

She wobbled forward, losing her balance, and I caught her again. “Yeah, let’s get you to bed.”

No, it wasn’t the best idea to carry her in my arms like she was mine. But yes, I did it anyway.