He reached out and grabbed her hand. “You don’t have to apologize. We used each other that night. My feelings were my own problem. We were just two kids dealing with a trauma in a really destructive way.”

He released her hand and pulled into her driveway. She pulled a remote from her purse and opened the garage so they could park the truck out of sight. When he shut off the engine, he turned to her and found she was still watching him with a frown.

“It’s okay,” he said, hating that look of regret on her face. “It was a long time ago.”

“All this time I thought you were the one who left. You were the friend who broke my heart.” She shook her head. “But that’s not true, is it? I was the one who broke yours.”

His ribs cinched tight at the words, his throat constricting. “Don’t absolve me. You had a right to be angry. I wasn’t a good friend to you back then.”

I was the worst.

But she wasn’t hearing him. She leaned over and kissed him. “Come inside, Ash. We have some lost time to make up for.”

“KC—”

She shook her head, and he swallowed his protest.

He’d told Kincaid no once tonight. He wasn’t going to do it again.

Nineteen

Kincaid’s mind was whirling as she led Ash through her house and to the master bathroom. She switched on the double-headed shower to let the water get hot and turned back to him. He’d gone quiet since getting out of the truck and had an unreadable look on his face. She recognized the look. He’d worn it a lot when they were teenagers, this brand of mild indifference that she’d thought was him being chill and aloof. Now she realized the indifference may have been the armor he’d used to keep his feelings hidden.

She’d truly had no idea he’d harbored any kind of crush on her back then, and now she felt stupid for having been so blind. How could she not have seen it? They’d spent every damn day together. She’d curled up next to him in bed on multiple occasions. She’d laid there next to him, telling him about the boys she dated. She’d waxed poetic about Graham and how much she loved him. Ugh. She’d been so involved in her own world that she hadn’t seen what was going on in Ash’s.

She prided herself on knowing what was going on with her friends, sensing when they needed her or when they were going through something tough. She’d always thought of that as one of her gifts. Yet somehow, she’d completely missed that she’d been hurting Ash back then, flaunting her relationships in his face.

Ash leaned against her sink, crossed his arms, and gave her a small smile. “You’re freaking out, aren’t you?”

She let out a breath and pinched her thumb and forefinger together. “Maybe a little?”

“Don’t,” he said. “You never led me on or gave me any indication you saw me that way. It wasn’t your job to manage my crush. How I felt—that’s on me.”