“You do not.” The waiter replaced her dropped spoon, and Grace reached for it and helped herself to a bite this time.
“Yes, I do. It’s at a shop that restores old cars now. They’re gutting and rebuilding it. So, if you decide to key it in the future, I will notice and be very sad. So let’s keep talking about how sad it is that we’re both so hot and can’t have one another.”
“I never said I was hot.”
“No, that was me. I implied it. I thought you’d be better at reading between the lines than that. Or we could talk about why your—what did you call them, rewind fantasies? Why weren’t they satisfying? I’m told that fantasy me is a stallion.”
She laughed then, so brightly that he instantly felt better. Like the whole of their history was being wiped clean. They could be friends, continue on in one another’s lives, hang out with Nick and do whatever it was that people did when they hung out in groups. Go the movies without formal wear. Something.
“Well, that was the other thing.” She sobered, shaking her head as her cheeks began to turn pink. “I wasn’t... See, I had this idea that you would’ve been...my first time. So I didn’t just make a stupid and unaccountably brave move for me, but for my experience level.”
His head snapped back as her words settled and coldness washed over him.
“You were...?” He must have heard that wrong. “You were a virgin? You were coming to me because you were a virgin?”
“I HAD THIS HAZY, insubstantial fantasy heavily lacking satisfying details...about you being the first.” Grace shrugged as she said it, like it meant nothing. Like that didn’t make it worse.
Liam sat back, at a loss for words.
“I’m not still a virgin,” she hastened to add. “I’m not still holding out for you or anything pathetic like that.”
Once again, she had misinterpreted his behavior.
“No, I imagine if you were still holding out for me, you’d have been a damned sight happier to see me than you were,” he muttered, his hand lifting to rub the back of his neck. “The guy you ended up with.”
“Brad.”
“Brad.” He repeated the name, as if it weren’t giving him those rewind fantasies about beating the hell out of Brad. “I don’t want details! Just... Was he good to you?”
“I guess so. I haven’t had very serious relationships. I always pick badly,” she said, shrugging again.
“Stop shrugging. Was he the one with the motorcycle?” If her rebound guy had...
She nodded, mouth twisting to the side. No doubt she could tell by the tone in his voice, which he had no hope of disguising, exactly what he wanted to do to Brad.
“Did he survive?” Earlier, Liam hadn’t thought to ask about the ex-boyfriend, but now that he knew his name and that he’d hurt her after being her first...
“Yes. He had all the leathers and such. I was just in jeans and—”
“Okay! Stop. I can’t know more right now. And to think I was hoping that this talk would make things better between us.”
“It has,” she said, putting her hand on his, so small and fragile to his eyes now. So breakable. He should’ve been there to protect her. He should’ve been there to make sure that Brad damned well knew he should give his date the damned leathers anytime he took them out on his motorcycle.
“Liam, I put you into a no-win situation. There was nothing you could’ve done right in that situation. Even if you’d done what I wanted, it’s unlikely that things would’ve been good between us now. My rewind fantasies also included how later, after you’d come to your senses, you came after me. Sometimes with gifts.”
He wanted to put his arm around her again and know that as long as she stayed by him he could keep her safe.
He pulled his hand free instead. “Those are normal girl fantasies.”
“No, I mean quintessential boyfriend gifts. Like flowers, candy, and a kitten in one hand and a puppy in the other. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“That you had relationship feelings.” It had never just been about sex. She’d had relationship feelings, she’d wanted him to be the first. And now? It was worse, because his mind was exactly in the same place.
Hell.
“Right.”
“Again, how does that make things better?”
“Because they’re another example of my being irrational and sentimental. You were living away at that time. I was about to go to college at the other end of the state.” She dropped her hand into her lap and once again the oversized shoulders of his jacket rose. “It’s okay. I got over it. I met someone else.”
“Brad.”
“Brad,” she repeated. “And then we broke up, and I met Austin. And then—”
“Stop. Please. I don’t need your dating CV.”
“Because this is not a date?” she prompted, grinning at him finally. “I feel better. I do. You shouldn’t feel badly about events you had nothing to do with.”
He felt badly about the event he had had something to do with. “If I had taken you aside and said I want you but we can’t do this, it would have been better. Because then I could’ve been there to make sure Brad knew what I’d do to him if he hurt you.”
“You assume that one change would have changed everything. Maybe it wouldn’t have. Maybe it would’ve made everything worse. I know for sure what you telling me that would’ve done. It would have led to me upping my game.”
“Grace, your game started with you at my front door in your underwear.”
“No. My game started long before that, but then you went away and I got desperate. That was my big plan when you came back to visit. It was my grand gesture.” She pushed the plate away and then flattened her hands against the tabletop. “I thought if I stopped beating around the bush, once you knew I wanted you, you’d be all for it. Everyone says teenage boys will have sex with any girl they find remotely attractive if offered the chance. I thought once the chance was offered, that the underwear would make you want me, and then everything would fall into place and they all lived happily ever after...”
“No reflection on your attractiveness, but that’s not how it works. At least not for me.”
“I figured that out later. But my point is that if then you had already wanted me and were just being rational? What eighteen-year-old girl do you know who cares about being rational when feelings are in the way? Heck, I barely care about rational now and I’ve supposedly had six years to grow up since then.”
The waiter came, the dessert between them was only half-eaten, and he’d lost his appetite for the chocolate-strawberry confection. “Check, please.” He nodded toward the jacket and said, “My wallet is in the pocket with the phone.”
“No,” Grace interjected before the waiter could get away. “Two checks.”
Because this wasn’t a date.
There had been moments when it had felt date-like, and then everything had gone pear-shaped.
The waiter looked at Liam for confirmation before he went to split the order.
She frowned, but didn’t keep on with the subject. Instead,