Page 6 of Reckless Single Daddy

I chuckle softly. I look over at her, and her smile is gentle, almost as if her animosity towards me the night before never existed.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I say. That’s the truth. Keep it short and sweet, and pay her as little mind as possible.

Last night was a lapse of judgment, and one that should never happen again. I should tell her as much, too. There should be no future expectations based on what occurred.

Mike would never forgive me if he knew how much I overstepped.

Jerome returns back with my cup. I pay, leaving a generous tip that makes even Sloane’s eyes widen. “I appreciate this, Cade. More than you know,” Jerome says, grinning widely.

“I keep telling you, just keep making the best coffee across the state, and I’ll keep those coming, my friend,” I tell him, grinning back.

He nods firmly as I turn away to take a sip. Sloane follows, frowning in confusion, which is to be expected. Being gone as long as she has, she hasn’t seen firsthand how much my company has flourished and what it has done for the community. And I’d like to keep it that way.

“Jerome will be talking about that for months,” she comments beside me, and she would be right, except I’ve tipped him that much for years now. The shock tends to wear off after a while.

I hum as I take another sip of coffee, walking out of the bookstore. She follows, and I’m left wondering why, especially as silence settles over us. It’s uncomfortable and awkward, but on the other hand, she seems perfectly calm and indifferent. Am I the only one plagued by the events of last night? Does she think there will be more between us?

I stop and clear my throat before I turn to face her. “I can’t do this,” I say bluntly.

She smirks knowingly. “I was wondering when you’d bring it up,” she replies, sipping her coffee as I stare at her curiously. She rolls her eyes. “Oh, c’mon, you’re my brother’s best friend, and we had sex last night.”

I reach out a hand to gently grab her shoulder, hushing her. “Not so loud, okay? You know this town. People will talk, alright?”

She just shakes her head, annoyed. “Listen, Cade, I don’t care about what happened. It did, and there is no changing it, but I don’t want things to be awkward between us,” she explains in a weirdly diplomatic way. I half-expected her to want to pursue something more because… well, that’s what usually happens with me, but I have to remind myself that this is Sloane. She’s never been like everyone else.

“You’re right.” I nod firmly. “Besides, you’ll return to the city once the wedding is done, right?” She nods. “So, there is nothing more to say. We can forget it ever happened.”

As soon as I say it, I feel a stab of regret. I knit my brows, trying to parse this feeling. Sloane stands there curiously, and I wonder if she can read my thoughts.

“Is… that what you really want?” she asks uncertainly.

Suddenly, the awkwardness returns in full force. Is that what I want, to just forget what happened with Sloane and move on? I don’t feel quite as confident as I once did about it. Evidently, thereissomething here; otherwise, we wouldn’t have done what we did. But on the other hand, this is my best friend’s sister, she’s a decade younger than me, and she lives hours away in a totally different environment. Even if there was some way to remove those things from the equation, we still have the underlying problem: what made us—more importantly, me—want to step over that line to begin with?

I don’t know what possessed her to do the same, but I feel like her answer would align with every other movie or book that featured our similar predicament. And this isn’t me being arrogant. Just honest.

“Why’d you do it?” I ask her as we cross the street. If we’re both not ready to say this whole thing is done between us, the least we can do is get to the root of why it happened.

She looks at me, her gaze challenging. “Why did you?”

I roll my eyes in an attempt to dissolve my simmering annoyance. She can’t just go and answer the question; she had to place it on me, like I’m the one to blame for all of this.

“Is this what we’re doing?” I ask. “Dancing around each other’s questions with follow-ups?”

She laughs and shakes her head before sipping her coffee. She licks her lips, not noticing how my eyes train on her every move. “To be fair, you’re the one who followed me into the women’s bathroom,” she points out.

That makes me trip up, and I stop right in my tracks. She’s right about that.

Sloane stops beside me, and I look at my shoes, sighing hard. I really don’t have anyone to blame but myself for putting us in this situation. Had I not been so brash and pissed her off the way that I did, and just let her cool off instead of following her into the bathroom, we wouldn’t be here.

Still, despite everything I did to initiate things, the question remains: why did she kiss me back, and why did she let things escalate to sex? She could have told me to stop, and I was ready to stop at any time, but she did the opposite. She clearly didn’t want me to leave her alone.

“I’m sorry for doing that,” I say softly, and I mean it because there is no other answer I can give her besides that. I may never know why she didn’t pull away or why she didn’t tell me to leave her alone, but none of it matters. I started all of it, and I have to own up to that.

She looks at me thoughtfully and then looks down, her face unreadable. “For what it’s worth…” She pauses momentarily, then shifts uncomfortably before she says, “I didn’t hate it.”

It’s my turn to look at her curiously, and I can’t help but smirk at her. She rolls her eyes again.

“Careful. Keep rolling your eyes, and they will stay like that,” I say, repeating my stupid line from the day before.

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