Page 18 of Code Red Chemistry

“What?” he asks, playing innocent.

“And there’s the Levi Reyes I remember,” I say, my voice betraying how much I like this playful side of him.

He eases up on the mint. “Sorry,” he murmurs into his glass as if the mint is his new best friend. “It’s just this date here tonight…it’s important. And see this gorgeous woman, here?” He tilts the glass in my direction. “Yeah, well, I’m about to bare my soul to her, and I’m not sure how she’s going to take it.”

Not only do I not know how I’ll take whatever he has to say, but I’m also not sure how to take the fact he’s confessing his fears to a handful of mashed mint leaves.

“Press the herbs gently, my friends,” the instructor’s voice calls out over the room. “They should feel your loving intention!”

“See,” Levi says, meeting my gaze. “I’m just following directions.”

“So that’s what’s coming? You baring your soul?”

“That’s the plan.” He glances up through unfairly long lashes. “Unless you’d rather keep pretending there isn’t something real here.”

My heart pounds so hard it threatens to crack my ribs, but before I can respond, our instructor interrupts again.

“Now, everyone switch to your shakers!”

Levi’s knuckles whiten around the muddler, and he shoots a frustrated glance at Mr. Man Bun.

“You’re the one who did the pretending last time,” I remind him, grabbing a paring knife to slice the cucumber.

“You’re right, Zo. I did.” He sets down the muddler and blows out a long breath. “Because I was terrified.”

“Of Alex?”

“Of you.”

The raw honesty in his voice snaps my gaze up to his face.

“Of how you made me feel,” he continues. “Christ, I’ve known you since you were in elementary school, when you were just Alex’s annoying kid sister trailing after us. Then suddenly here you were, this brilliant woman with your entire future mapped out, already crushing med school, and I was…” He trails off, grabbing a bottle of tonic water as if it might escape.

My grip tightens on the knife handle. “You were what?”

“A guy who barely made it through high school. Didn’t go to college, worked dead-end jobs and hadn’t even been accepted to the academy yet.” His jaw works.

Understanding floods through me, hot and sharp. “You pushed me away that morning because you were scared? Because you thought you weren’t good enough for me?”

“And now, time for the fun part—garnishing!” The instructor’s voice grates on my last nerve as Levi sets down the bottle and lays both palms flat on the butcher block.

“Seemed easier than watching you figure out I wasn’t worth your time.” His voice drops low enough only I can hear. “And better than losing Alex when he inevitably would have killed me.”

“Did he say something?”

“He didn’t have to. I knew exactly what he’d think about me going after his sister. Hell, I knew what everyone would think.” Ice cubes clink as he drops two into the stainless-steel shaker. “And they’d have been right. I didn’t deserve you.”

“And now?” The question slips out before I can stop it.

His gaze snaps to mine, those dark eyes intense enough to stop traffic. “I still don’t, not even close. And I’m still terrified. The difference now is, I’ve realized the truth.”

“That you should have let me have a say in us?”

“Well, that, too,” he admits before lifting his gaze to latch onto mine. “That I can’t live without you.”

My heart is doing its best to escape my chest cavity as I process his words. All this time, I thought I was just another conquest, when really…

“I never got over that night,” he admits quietly. “Never got over you.”

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