I glanced at him, taking in his ridiculous good looks. Truly, one person should not be this blessed in the hotness department; it simply wasn’t fair. And I said, “Thanks for bringing him by. I would have fretted all night.”

Nick nodded and glanced up at the night sky. “Sir Lancelot, no, that’s not it. It’s too old-world and he’s clearly a hip cat. I’ll keep thinking on it.”

“How about Sir Mick,” I said. Nick raised one eyebrow in question. “You know, as in Mick Jagger.”

“He does have an air of rock and roll royalty about him,” Nick conceded. “We can consider it.”

“Oh, we can?” I asked. He seemed awfully invested in naming the cat all of a sudden.

“If he’s going to be visiting my house, too, then, yes, I think I should have some say,” he said. His gaze met mine and then slid away, only to come right back as he continued, “Anyway, he was just an excuse for me to stop by. I wanted to apologize for the other morning. I wasn’t prepared for you to see me like this.” He held his hands out to indicate the chair. “But I guess that cat is out of the bag or the hoodie, as it were.” He met and held my gaze. “I acted like an asshole. I yelled at you and you did nothing to deserve that. I’m very sorry.”

Well, I’ll be. Despite his off-putting control freak nature, Nick Daire was a good man. And truthfully, now that I knew he depended upon a wheelchair, it made the control freak thing easier to understand. He likely had to think things through, because of the logistics of using a wheelchair, much more than other people did. Simple things like going to the store, how to navigate bringing the chair, getting items off the top shelves, pushing a cart, and a million other tasks. It made sense that he had the Guzmans and Jackson to help him.

“Apology accepted,” I said. “And I’m sorry—”

“Please don’t,” he interrupted. His startlingly pretty eyes held mine. “That’s twice you’ve apologized when you don’t have anything to apologize for.”

The urge to apologize again, for apologizing no less, was right there on the tip of my tongue. As if he knew it, he slowly shook his head from side to side. Saying “I’m sorry” was my default setting. I wasn’t sure of what to say without leading with an apology.

We stared at each other for a few long moments, and feeling incredibly self-conscious and fully aware that I have no sense of personal boundaries and was being peak rude, I asked, “What happened to you?” I wanted to hear the story from him.