Page 188 of Catfish

“I will.”

“Call me in a few days, text me tomorrow.”

"Sure thing, I'll—" A loud knock sounds on my front door, startling me from continuing what I was going to say.

“You alright?” Mama asks on the other side. My attention is already on the wine-colored door as I focus on ending the call with her.

“Yeah, just got distracted with the TV, new show.” I slide off my stool. “I’ll text you tomorrow.”

She tells me she loves me, and we hang up while I'm slowly walking up to the front door, careful not to be betrayed by any squeaks from my hardwood floors.

Grabbing the baseball bat that always sits alongside the side table, I unlock my door, ready to swing if need be.

And I do need to swing because Wade Lockwood is standing on my porch again with plastic bags of carryout containers and something else.

“Hey,” he deadpans with zero emotion and an even duller expression on his face.

My door remains open so that my head can peer through it and rake my gaze over his casual attire of faded jeans and a black leather coat with a white tee.

Lord.

“Did you think of a change after all with the menu, Governor?”

He shakes his head. “No, I just wanted to come by to apologize for today.”

I nod. "Alright. A text or waiting for the next time you saw me would have sufficed, but thanks."

"Reagan." It's a soft warning, but it's the second time he's ever said my name, and I fucking love how it comes off his lips.

And I hate how I just reacted to it.

My body hums for more, my cheeks just warmed, and the grip on my bat just loosened a tad.

“What else can I do for you?”

“I want you to mean it,” he conveys.

“Mean what?”

Wade narrows his eyes at me. “I want you to accept my apology.”

“Why because you said so?" He averts his gaze from me, pushing his bottom lip out with his tongue, but I see the smirk he's trying to hide from me.

"You know, I never apologize," he states. "Because I never cared about the person on the other side of it. Normally when I snap at someone it's because they did something stupid, and I don't deal with stupid. But you—" He rounds his gaze back to me. "—I never want you to feel like I don't care. Besides Em, I never want us to be on bad terms."

Taking a step in my direction, he holds out the two plastic bags in his hands, lofting over me.

“We can do this one of two ways,” he continues. “You let me in, we eat, watch a few episodes of Scandal—” Another stride in my space. “Or I drop the food on this porch, show you how sorry I am, and we end up doing round six through ten tonight."

“Ten?”

His mouth twitches. "Three days, Reagan, do you know how much shit I've imagined us doing in those three days when I was states away?" My nipples harden, and I'm blaming it on the cool breeze that just hit my chest, so I cross my arms.

He perks a brow. "Option two, then?"

Moving aside, I let him walk through the door, watching him make his way to my kitchen. Placing the bags on the island, he opens one of the drawers to grab some forks.

“You can close your door,” he issues as he focuses on pulling the carryout containers out of the bags he brought.

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