No; he was making her want to feel things for him with her entire heart, instead of only a secret hidden part, and that wasn’t—it wasn’t right, and it wasn’t safe. He had no idea he’d brought a knife to a gun party, and if she slipped up and showed him all the explosive shit she was packing, he’d be overwhelmed and he’d back away and then she’d be left alone with oceans full of useless love—God, don’t say it, don’t think it—and he’d be gone before this thing had even started.

She had to make him see reason before he fucked everything up.

“You can’t casually date someone you’ve known forever,” she told him quickly, “someone who’s all tied up in your family—”

“I’m not trying to casually date you. I’m trying to seriously date you.”

“We live completely different lives” was her next line, reeled out with something like desperation. “You’re a celebrity. I’m an office manager, and I like it. You live in LA, which seems like a literal nightmare, by the way, and I live here—well, home, and again, I like it. We’re from different worlds.” Wasn’t that always what they said in films and tragic novels?

Will clearly wasn’t impressed, because he rolled his eyes. “We’re from Forest Fields, and I only left because I had a better chance at making money from my face than I did from my so-called brain.”

Abbie narrowed her eyes, distracted from her current turmoil. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. The fact you made such calculated career decisions and ruthlessly exploited your own strengths is using your brain.”

“I know,” he said softly. “You taught me that.”

She blinked at the tenderness in his voice and at the fact that—well, technically he was right. She did remember telling him something like that, when they were young. That using what you had to get what you wanted was the smartest thing a person could do. She couldn’t believe he still remembered that, or that he’d taken it to heart.

It really shouldn’t make her breath catch like this, the idea that he’d taken it to heart. But it did.

It also drained all the panicked, cornered-animal fight out of her, and once that was gone, all Abbie had left was harsh reality and the root of her issue.

She shouldn’t be this scared right now.