Page 20 of The Charm of You

Once again, he extends his hand for the apparent prize, but I don’t let go.

He scowls, and the right side of his top lip curls. I shouldn’t find it endearing, but I totally do. It momentarily distracts me when he asks, “What is with you and this pie? It’s okay to part with it. I’m sure your mother—and everyone else in this town, for that matter—would be happy to bake you another. All you need to do is bat your eyelashes and wave your magic wand, Homecoming Queen.”

“We need to talk first,” I insist, with a defiant lift of my chin.

“Fine,” he clips. “I’ll let Mom know you’re here.”

For such a large person, he moves with surprising stealth toward the door, but before he disappears, I call out, “I need to talk to you.”

Again, he faces me with folded arms over his chest and waits, his piercing gaze locked and loaded like he could laser a hole into my forehead at the snap of a finger.

“I’m sorry about this morning.” I step forward, taking my chances on whether or not the hot rage emanating from him will set me on fire. “It’s not that I don’t remember you. I just didn’t recognize you. You look so different, with your hair flipped back and your muscles so big and your manly…”

He flicks his steely gaze over my shoulder, then onto me again.

“You look so different,” I repeat and punctuate it with a gulp. I almost got carried away with my apology and my shameful perusal.

“Is that all?” he asks, and his flippant, uninterested tone strikes a match across my nerves.

“Actually, no.” I take another step forward, my heart skipping across my chest. “This is the part where you accept my apology. The polite, Southern thing to do is to forgive a neighbor, isn’t it?”

His smirk cuts through the firm mask of his stony expression. “What do you know about the Southern way? You probably kicked the word y’all from your vocabulary years ago, along with any manners. It was probably around the same time New York taught you to lie to your neighbors.”

“I’m not lying.” I gape.

He swipes at the corners of his lips, sways forward, and leans down to meet my height. Even with my wedges, I’m no match for him. What is he, like seven feet tall? “You claim not to have recognized me this morning, but the truth is, you don’t remember me at all. Not my face or my name or anything, but you lied just now to save face. Now…”

On instinct, I inch forward, hanging on to his every word like he’s reading a romantic monologue, when really, he’s insulting me.

He’s getting back at me because I insulted him first—twice.

Shit.

“I’ll take this pie, and you can be on your way to pass out baskets of lovely compliments to the rest of your neighbors,” he fires back and snatches the pie from my hands.

My fingers instantly chill with the absence of the warm dish between them. More than that, I’m flustered over trying to make this right with Austin, but I’m only making it worse.

“You seem awfully offended by my lie,” I blurt. He has the door open this time, but again, my words stop him.

Slowly turning to face me, he asks, “Excuse me?”

“I find it curious that you’re so angry because I didn’t recognize you, and then I lied about not recognizing you.”

His chuckle is low and less than hearty, to say the least. I’m poking the bear, and I’m caught somewhere between it being fun and terrifying. “And I think it’s curious that you’re still standing here, so maybe it’s not me who needs to be analyzed. Maybe it’s you.”

“I’m not leaving until you accept my apology,” I insist, my palms officially sweating. Why am I still here? He obviously doesn’t want to talk to me, but that’s the exact problem, isn’t it?

I hate that he’s mad at me.

“I accept your apology,” he says in a hoarse, robotic voice.

“You clearly don’t mean it.”

“What is your problem? Are you pissed that someone in your life doesn’t bend to your every whim? Newsflash, Homecoming Queen, we’re not all here to praise you and shower you with gifts.”

“I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you accept my apology,” I hiss as a hot flash of indignation zips through me. “And the fact that you won’t just proves that you’re deeply hurt because of me.”

“I don’t care enough about you to be affected.”

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