A moment later, the door swung open and Taylor appeared on the other side. He couldn’t read her flat expression, but he erred on the side of her still being upset with him.

“Umm, hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she murmured. She opened the door wider, an invitation to enter.

Jamar stuffed his hands into his pockets as he followed her inside. She cut across the room, settling near the chest of drawers, but something stopped him from going farther than the few tentative steps he’d taken just inside the door.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, unsure of where to start. He hated this feeling, not knowing where things stood between them. There was one thing he had learned in the past twelve hours—just how much Taylor Powell had come to mean to him in this short time. The intense regret over how their night had ended was just one indication. How he ached to hold her right now was another. He needed her.

“Look, Taylor, I know I screwed up last night by sharing my…umm…my unsolicited opinion, but—”

“Stop,” she said, holding up a hand.

Jamar’s throat grew intensely tight. One of the worst-case scenarios on the massive list of worst-case scenarios he’d dreamed up last night was Taylor demanding they go back to pretending they were dating for the rest of the weekend and then dumping his ass as soon as they returned to Austin.

She’d walked him through the complicated relationship she had with her family, had opened up about how inadequate she felt when compared to them. And in her eyes, he’d sided with her family—with her archenemy of a brother—over her. Could he really blame her for her hostility?

“I…um.” She glanced at the bed, the chair in the corner, out the window. She released a deep breath and continued. “I was mad at Darwin and took it out on you. I shouldn’t have.”

It took Jamar a moment to process her words.

She finally directed her gaze to him. “Things were going so well last night that I let my guard down around Darwin. I knew better than to do that. The two of us have always gotten along like expensive taste and bad credit.” She hunched her shoulders. “Like I said, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

Jamar was almost afraid to ask, “So does this mean we’re okay?”

She stretched out both her hands, capturing his and bringing herself into him. She lifted her face to his and placed a kiss on his chin.

“We’re okay,” she said.

The sudden release of tension made his limbs go weak. He still had so many questions about her outburst at her brother, but he didn’t want to chance a repeat of what happened last night. He wasn’t in the right headspace for navigating that tricky conversation.